Employee Benefit Plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

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

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 employee benefit plans expense consisted of the following:



	Three Months Ended March 31,
(in thousands)	2020			2019

Interest cost	$	4,917		$	5,800
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses	(5,256		)	(5,058		)
Amortization of actuarial loss and prior service cost	1,125			572
Total for defined benefit pension plan	786			1,314
Multi-employer plans	9			41
SERPs	240			258
Defined contribution plan	3,779			2,995
Net periodic benefit cost	$	4,814		$	4,608

We contributed $0.3 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERPs and $4.8 million for our defined benefit pension plan during the three months ended March 31, 2020. During the remainder of 2020, we anticipate contributing an additional $1.0 million to fund the SERPs' benefit payments. We are required to contribute an additional $27.0 million to fund our qualified defined benefit pension plan in order to meet our 2020 funding requirements under the provisions of the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004 and the Pension Protection Act of 2006. In response to COVID-19, President Donald Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”). The CARES Act provides a provision to defer 2020 pension contributions until January 1, 2021. We anticipate delaying the payment of 2020 pension contributions in accordance with the CARES Act provision.