EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS (Policies)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Plan Assets - Our investment strategy is to invest plan assets in accordance with sound investment practices that emphasize long-term fundamentals. The goal of this strategy is to maximize investment returns while managing risk in order to meet the plan’s current and projected financial obligations. The investment allocation for our other postretirement benefit plans is to target a diversified mix of approximately 30% fixed income and 70% equity securities. The investment allocation for our defined benefit pension plan follows a glide path approach of liability-driven investing that shifts a higher portfolio weighting to fixed income as the plan’s funded status increases. The purpose of liability-driven investing is to structure the asset portfolio to more closely resemble the pension liability and thereby more effectively hedge against changes in the liability. The plan’s current investments include a diverse blend of various domestic and international equities, investments in various classes of debt securities, real estate and hedge funds. The target allocation for the assets of our retirement plan as of December 31, 2020, is as follows:


Domestic and international equities	42	%
Long duration fixed income	30	%
Return-seeking credit	11	%
Hedge funds	10	%
Real estate funds	7	%
Total	100	%

As part of our risk management for the plans, minimums and maximums have been set for each of the asset classes listed above.

Pension and Other Postretirement Plans, Policy [Policy Text Block]

Retirement and Other Postretirement Employee Benefits - We have defined benefit retirement plans covering certain employees and former employees. We sponsor welfare plans that provide postretirement medical and life insurance benefits to certain employees hired prior to 2017 who retire with at least five years of service. The expense and liability related to these plans is calculated using statistical and other factors that attempt to anticipate future events. These factors include assumptions about the discount rate, expected return on plan assets, rate of future compensation increases, mortality and employment length. In determining the projected benefit obligations and costs, assumptions can change from period to period and may result in changes in the costs and liabilities we recognize.

See Note K for our retirement and other postretirement employee benefits disclosures.

We determine our overall expected long-term rate of return on plan assets based on our review of historical returns and economic growth models.We determine our discount rates annually utilizing portfolios of high quality bonds matched to the estimated benefit cash flows of our retirement and other postretirement benefit plans. Bonds selected to be included in the portfolios are only those rated by S&P or Moody’s as an AA or Aa2 rating or better and exclude callable bonds, bonds with less than a minimum issue size, yield outliers and other filtering criteria to remove unsuitable bonds.

- Definition

Disclosure of accounting policy for pension and other postretirement benefit plans. This accounting policy may address (1) the types of plans sponsored by the entity, and the benefits provided by each plan (2) groups that participate in (or are covered by) each plan (3) how plan assets, liabilities and expenses are measured, including the use of any actuaries and (4) significant assumptions used by the entity to value plan assets and liabilities and how such assumptions are derived.

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