6. STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2017

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

Stock Incentive Plans

Options

We have one long-term equity incentive plan which we refer to as the 2006 Equity Incentive Plan, which we first amended and restated as of April 20, 2015 and again on March 9, 2017 (“the Restated Plan”). The Restated Plan was approved by our stockholders at our annual stockholders meeting on June 8, 2017. As of June 30, 2017, we have reserved for issuance under the 2017 Restated Plan 14,000,000 shares of common stock. We can issue options, stock awards, stock appreciation rights, stock units and cash awards under the 2017 Restated Plan. Certain options granted under the Restated Plan to employees are intended to qualify as incentive stock options under existing tax regulations. Stock options generally vest over three to five years and expire five to ten years from the date of grant.

As of June 30, 2017, we had outstanding options to acquire 560,149 shares of our common stock, of which options to acquire 205,000 shares were exercisable. The following summarizes all of our option transactions for the six months ended June 30, 2017:

Outstanding Options Under the 2006 Plan	Shares		Weighted Average Exercise price Per Common Share	Weighted Average Remaining Contractual Life (in years)	Aggregate Intrinsic Value
Balance, December 31, 2016		375,626	$6.82
Granted		184,523	6.30
Balance, June 30, 2017		560,149	6.65	5.79	$	793,610
Exercisable at June 30, 2017		205,000	7.51	0.43		228,400

Aggregate intrinsic value in the table above represents the total pretax intrinsic value (the difference between our closing stock price on June 30, 2017 and the exercise price, multiplied by the number of in-the-money options as applicable) that would have been received by the holder had all holders exercised their options on June 30, 2017. No options were exercised during the six months ended June 30, 2017. As of June 30, 2017, total unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to non-vested employee awards was $919,897 which is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of approximately 3.1 years.

Restricted Stock Awards (“RSA’s”)

The Restated Plan permits the award of restricted stock awards (“RSA’s”). As of June 30, 2017, we have issued a total of 4,945,460 RSA’s of which 470,351 were unvested at June 30, 2017. The following summarizes all unvested RSA’s activities during the six months ended June 30, 2017:

				Weighted-Average
				Remaining
				Contractual		Weighted-Average
	RSA's			Term (Years)		Fair Value
RSA's unvested at December 31, 2016		573,145				$6.18
Changes during the period
Granted		681,448				$5.98
Vested		(784,242	)			$6.02
RSA's unvested at June 30, 2017		470,351			0.86	$6.12

We determine the fair value of all RSA’s based of the closing price of our common stock on award date.

Other stock bonus awards

The Restated Plan also permits the award of stock bonuses not subject to any future service period. These awards are valued and expensed based on the closing price of our common stock on the date of award. During the six months ended June 30, 2017 we issued 10,000 shares relating to these awards, amounting to $59,000 of compensation expense

Plan summary

In sum, of the 14,000,000 shares of common stock reserved for issuance under the Restated Plan, at June 30, 2017, we had issued 13,044,359 total shares between options, RSA’s and other stock awards. With options cancelled and RSA’s forfeited amounting to 2,975,009 and 59,053 shares, respectively, there remain 3,989,703 shares available under the Restated Plan for future issuance.