Employee Benefit Plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Employee Benefit Plans

Employee Benefit Plans

We sponsor noncontributory defined benefit pension plans and non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans ("SERPs"). The accrual for future benefits has been frozen in our defined benefit pension plans and SERPs.

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.

The components of the employee benefit plans expense consisted of the following:

	Three Months Ended   March 31,
(in thousands)	2019			2018
Interest cost	$	5,800		$	5,925
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses	(5,058		)	(5,732		)
Amortization of actuarial loss and prior service cost	572			921
Total for defined benefit pension plans	1,314			1,114
Multi-employer plans	41			47
SERPs	258			274
Defined contribution plan	2,995			2,793
Net periodic benefit cost	4,608			4,228
Allocated to discontinued operations	—			(203		)
Net periodic benefit cost — continuing operations	$	4,608		$	4,025

We contributed $0.3 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERPs and $1.7 million for our defined benefit pension plans during the three months ended March 31, 2019. During the remainder of 2019, we anticipate contributing an additional $1.0 million to fund the SERPs' benefit payments and an additional $16.9 million to fund our qualified defined benefit pension plans.