Employee Benefit Plans

We sponsor two noncontributory defined benefit pension plans as well as two non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans ("SERPs"). 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.

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 June 30,						Six Months Ended June 30,
(in thousands)	2017			2016			2017			2016

Interest cost	$	6,486		$	6,770		$	12,971		$	13,540
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses	(4,360		)	(4,599		)	(8,720		)	(9,196		)
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,084			997			2,168			1,995
Total for defined benefit plans	3,210			3,168			6,419			6,339
Multi-employer plans	59			42			133			85
SERPs	257			281			515			560
Defined contribution plan	1,957			2,086			4,861			4,274
Net periodic benefit cost	$	5,483		$	5,577		$	11,928		$	11,258

We contributed $0.5 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERPs and $6.2 million for our defined benefit pension plans during the six months ended June 30, 2017. During the remainder of 2017, we anticipate contributing an additional $1.0 million to fund the SERPs' benefit payments and an additional $10.0 million to fund our qualified defined benefit pension plans.