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Note 8 - Employee Benefit Plans
 9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2020
Notes to Financial Statements  
Retirement Benefits [Text Block]

(8)

EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

 

U.S. Defined Benefit Pension Plan

 

We have a defined benefit pension plan (pension plan) that covers certain U.S. citizen employees and other employees who are permanent residents of the United States. The pension plan was frozen during 2010.  We did not contribute to the pension plan during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 and we are not required to contribute to the pension plan during the remaining quarter of calendar year 2020; however, we may, at our discretion, make contributions to the pension plan in order to manage our plan expenses.  We contributed $1.1 million to the pension plan during the third quarter of 2019.  Actuarial valuations are performed annually and an assessment of the future pension obligations and market value of the assets will determine if contributions are made in the future.

 

Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan

 

We also support a non-contributory and non-qualified defined benefit supplemental executive retirement plan (supplemental plan) which was closed to new participants during 2010, that provided pension benefits to certain employees in excess of those allowed under our tax-qualified pension plan.  We contributed $0.4 million and $1.2 million during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 and $2.1 million and $2.9 million during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019, respectively. We expect to contribute $0.4 million to the supplemental plan during the remainder of 2020. Our obligations under the supplemental plan were $21.0 million and $21.4 million as of September 30, 2020 and  December 31, 2019, respectively, and are included in “accrued costs and expenses” and “other liabilities” on the consolidated balance sheet.

 

Other Defined Benefit Pension Plans

 

We also have defined benefit pension plans that cover a small number of former Norwegian employees. Benefits are based on years of service and employee compensation. Our contributions to the Norwegian defined benefit pension plans during 2020 and 2019, were immaterial and we expect that any contributions for the remainder of calendar year 2020 will be immaterial. Substantially, all of our Norwegian employees were transferred from our defined benefit pension plans into a defined contribution plan during 2020.

 

Net Periodic Benefit Costs

 

The net periodic benefit cost for our defined benefit pension plans and supplemental plan (referred to collectively as “Pension Benefits”) is comprised of the following components:

 

  

Three Months Ended

  

Nine Months Ended

 

(In thousands)

 

September 30, 2020

  

September 30, 2019

  

September 30, 2020

  

September 30, 2019

 

Pension Benefits:

                

Service cost

 $97  $316  $111  $328 

Interest cost

  239   1,006   2,737   2,853 

Expected return on plan assets

  (114)  (711)  (2,208)  (1,787)

Administrative expenses

  52   83   64   90 

Settlement loss

  79   (46)  910   46 

Amortization of net actuarial losses

  5   —   (4)  — 

Net periodic pension cost

 $358  $648  $1,610  $1,530