Employee Benefit Plans

401(k) Plan

The Company maintains defined contribution and profit sharing plans in conformity with the provisions of section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code at Columbia Bank. The Columbia Bank 401(k) and Profit Sharing Plan (the “401(k) Plan”), permits eligible Columbia Bank employees, those who are at least 18 years of age and have completed six months of service, to contribute up to 75% of their eligible compensation to the 401(k) Plan. On a per pay period basis the Company is required to match 50% of employee contributions up to 3% of each employee’s eligible compensation. Additionally, as determined annually by the Board of Directors of the Company, the 401(k) Plan provides for a non-matching discretionary profit sharing contribution. The Company contributed $1.2 million during 2011, $866 thousand during 2010, and $748 thousand during 2009, in matching funds to the 401(k) Plan. The Company’s discretionary profit sharing contributions were $2.6 million during 2011, $1.2 million during 2010 and $0 during 2009.

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

The Company maintains an “Employee Stock Purchase Plan” (the “ESP Plan”) in which substantially all employees of the Company are eligible to participate. The ESP Plan provides participants the opportunity to purchase common stock of the Company at a discounted price. Under the ESP Plan, participants can purchase common stock of the Company for 90% of the lowest price on either the first or last day in each of two six month look-back periods. The look-back periods are January 1st through June 30th and July 1st through December 31st of each calendar year. The 10% discount is recognized by the Company as compensation expense and does not have a material impact on net income or earnings per common share. Participants of the ESP Plan purchased 39,989 shares for $690 thousand in 2011, 35,806 shares for $614 thousand in 2010 and 55,443 shares for $578 thousand in 2009. At December 31, 2011 there were 647,903 shares available for purchase under the ESP plan.

Supplemental Compensation Plan

The Company maintains supplemental compensation arrangements (“Unit Plans”) to provide benefits for certain employees. The Unit Plans generally vest over a 4-10 year period and provide a fixed annual benefit over a 5-10 year period. At December 31, 2011 and 2010 the liability associated with these plans was $4.4 million and $4.0 million, respectively. Expense associated with these plans for the years ended December 31, 2011, 2010 and 2009 was $655 thousand, $750 thousand and $530 thousand, respectively.

Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan

The Company maintains a supplemental executive retirement plan (the “SERP”), a nonqualified deferred compensation plan that provides retirement benefits to certain highly compensated executives. The SERP is unsecured and unfunded and there are no program assets. The SERP projected benefit obligation, which represents the vested net present value of future payments to individuals under the plan is accrued over the estimated remaining term of employment of the participants and has been determined by actuarial valuation using the “RP-2000 Annuity Mortality Table” for the mortality assumptions and discount rates of 5.30% and 5.90% in 2011 and 2010, respectively. Additional assumptions and features of the plan are a normal retirement age of 65 and a 2% annual cost of living benefit adjustment. The projected benefit obligation is included in other liabilities on the Consolidated Balance Sheets.

The following table reconciles the accumulated liability for the projected benefit obligation:



	December 31,
	2011			2010
	(in thousands)
Balance at beginning of year	$	10,363		$	9,947
Change in actuarial loss	329			(78		)
Benefit expense	987			928
Benefit payments	(442		)	(434		)
Balance at end of year	$	11,237		$	10,363

The benefits expected to be paid in conjunction with the SERP are presented in the following table:



Years Ending December 31,	(in thousands)
2012	$	510
2013	526
2014	555
2015	572
2016	803
2017 through 2021	5,864
Total	$	8,830