Employee Benefit Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2016

Compensation and Retirement Disclosure [Abstract]

Employee Benefit Plans

Employee Benefit Plans

We sponsor two noncontributory defined benefit pension plans covering certain Scripps employees that began employment prior to June 30, 2008, as well as certain former Journal Communications, Inc. ("Journal") employees. We also have two non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans ("SERPs") covering Scripps employees and certain former Journal employees. Both of the defined benefit plans and the SERPs have frozen the accrual of future benefits.

We sponsor a defined contribution plan covering substantially all non-union and certain union employees. We match a portion of employees' voluntary contributions to this plan. In connection with freezing the accrual of service credits under certain of our defined benefit pension plans, we began contributing additional amounts (referred to as transition credits) to certain employees' defined contribution retirement accounts ending in 2015.

Other union-represented employees are covered by defined benefit pension plans jointly sponsored by us and the union, or by union-sponsored multi-employer plans.

The components of the expense consisted of the following:

	Three Months Ended   September 30,						Nine Months Ended   September 30,
(in thousands)	2016			2015			2016			2015
Interest cost	$	6,839		$	8,169		$	20,379		$	22,797
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses	(4,616		)	(6,625		)	(13,812		)	(18,334		)
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,102			1,179			3,097			3,515
Curtailment	—			—			—			1,080
Total for defined benefit plans	3,325			2,723			9,664			9,058
Multi-employer plans	42			43			127			140
SERPs	280			253			840			800
Defined contribution plans	2,073			2,094			6,347			7,805
Net periodic benefit cost	5,720			5,113			16,978			17,803
Allocated to discontinued operations	—			—			—			(1,096		)
Net periodic benefit cost — continuing operations	$	5,720		$	5,113		$	16,978		$	16,707

We contributed $0.8 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERPs and $7.6 million for our defined benefit pension plans during the nine months ended September 30, 2016. During the remainder of 2016, we anticipate contributing an additional $0.3 million to fund the SERPs' benefit payments and an additional $1 million to $2 million to fund our qualified defined benefit pension plans.

In the second quarter of 2015, a one-time curtailment charge of $1.1 million was recorded related to our defined benefit pension plan as a result of the impact of the spin-off of our Newspaper business.