11.	Employee Benefit Plans

The Company offers various post-retirement benefits to its employees, including a defined benefit pension plan (the “Pension Plan”) and a non-qualified supplemental employee retirement plan (the “SERP”). The SERP, which is unfunded, provides defined pension benefits, in addition to what is provided under the Pension Plan, to eligible executives based on average earnings, years of service and age at retirement.

In 2009, we amended the Pension Plan whereby no additional service benefits will be earned by participants after December 31, 2009. The amount of eligible compensation that is used to calculate a plan participant’s pension benefit will continue to include any compensation earned by the employee through December 31, 2019, after which time all plan participants will have a frozen pension benefit.

The components of the Pension Plan and SERP expense consisted of the following:

	Pension Plan						SERP
	Six months ended June 30,						Six months ended June 30,
(in thousands)	2016			2015			2016		2015
Interest cost	$	1,552		$	1,464		$	866	$	670
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses		(1,644	)		(1,898	)		-		-
Special termination benefits		-			831			-		293
Amortization of net loss		1,060			1,136			1,032		1,208
Settlement charges					1,958					-
Total	$	968		$	3,491		$	1,898	$	2,171

	Pension Plan						SERP
	Three months ended June 30,						Three months ended June 30,
(in thousands)	2016			2015			2016		2015
Interest cost	$	776		$	732		$	433	$	335
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses		(822	)		(949	)		-		-
Special termination benefits		-			248			-		127
Amortization of net loss		530			568			516		604
Settlement charges		-			1,958			-		-
Total	$	484		$	2,557		$	949	$	1,066

In the fourth quarter of 2014, we announced the Restructuring Plan, providing each affected employee the benefit of an additional three years of credited service related to the applicable Pension Plan and SERP for which they qualify (see Note 5 – Employee Termination Programs). The special termination charge represents the cost of providing these additional benefits to the employees retiring under the terms of the Restructuring Plan.

We did not make any contributions to fund the Pension Plan during the three months ended June 30, 2016 or during the three months ended June 30, 2015. We made a contribution of $10.0 million to fund the Pension Plan during the six months ended June 30, 2016 and did not make any contributions during the six months ended June 30, 2015.

We made $0.1 million and $0.7 million in SERP benefit payments for the three months ended June 30, 2016 and June 30, 2015, respectively. We made $1.8 million and $0.8 million SERP benefit payments for the six months ended June 30, 2016 and June 30, 2015, respectively. We anticipate an additional $6.9 million in SERP benefit payments during the remainder of 2016.

Executive Deferred Compensation Plan

We have an unqualified executive deferred compensation plan (“Deferred Compensation Plan”) that is available to certain management level employees and directors of the Company. Under the Deferred Compensation Plan, participants may elect to defer receipt of a portion of their annual compensation. The Deferred Compensation Plan is intended to be an unfunded plan maintained primarily for the purpose of providing deferred compensation benefits. We use corporate-owned life insurance contracts held in a rabbi trust to support the plan. We had investments within this rabbi trust valued at $43.6 million, including $27.4 million of cash surrender value of Company-owned life insurance contracts and $16.2 million held in mutual funds, at June 30, 2016. We had investments within this rabbi trust valued at $42.8 million, including $27.0 million of cash surrender value of Company-owned life insurance contracts and $15.8 million held in mutual funds, at December 31, 2015. These mutual funds are valued using Level 1 and Level 2 inputs. These instruments are included within other non-current assets on our condensed consolidated balance sheets. Gains or losses related to these insurance contracts are included within miscellaneous, net in our condensed consolidated statements of operations. The unsecured obligation to pay the deferred compensation, including deferred director’s fees, adjusted to reflect the positive or negative performance of investment measurement options selected by each participant, totaled $44.6 million and $42.0 million at June 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively, and is included within other non-current liabilities on our condensed consolidated balance sheets.