The Company maintains two stock-based compensation plans from which new grants could be issued. The Company’s stock-based compensation plans permit Parent Corporation common stock to be issued to key employees and directors of the Company and its subsidiaries. Grants under the existing plans can be in the form of stock options (qualified or non-qualified), restricted shares, or performance units. Shares available for grant and issuance under the existing plans as of March 31, 2017 are 68,516 under the 2009 Equity Incentive Plan and 53,431 shares under the North Jersey Community Bancorp Equity Compensation Plan. The Company intends to issue all shares under these plans in the form of newly issued shares.

Restricted stock and option awards typically have a three-year vesting period starting one year after the date of grant with one-third vesting each year. The options generally expire ten years from the date of grant. Restricted stock awards granted to new employees and board members may be granted with shorter vesting periods. Grants of performance units typically have a cliff vesting after three years. All issuances are subject to forfeiture if the recipient leaves or is terminated prior to the awards vesting. Restricted shares have the same dividend and voting rights as common stock, while options and performance units do not.

All awards are issued at fair value of the underlying shares at the grant date. The Company expenses the cost of the awards, which is determined to be the fair market value of the awards at the date of grant, ratably over the vesting period.

During quarters ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, the Company granted to various key employees performance unit awards, with each unit entitling the holder to one share of the Company’s common stock contingent upon the Company meeting or exceeding certain return on asset targets over the course of a three-year period commencing on January 1 of the year of issuance. Under the grant agreements, and assuming the Company has met or exceeded the applicable targets, grants of performance unit awards will vest on the third anniversary of the grant date or on an earlier date in the event of a change in control, as defined in the agreements. At March 31, 2017, the specific number of shares related to performance unit awards that were expected to vest was 151,194, determined by actual performance in consideration of the established range of the performance targets, which is consistent with the level of expense currently being recognized over the vesting period. Should this expectation change, additional compensation expense could be recorded in future periods or previously recognized expense could be reversed. At March 31, 2017 the maximum amount of performance units that ultimately could vest if performance targets were exceeded is 226,791.

Option activity under the Company’s option plans as of and for the three months ended March 31, 2017 were as follows:

				Weighted-
				Average
		Weighted-		Remaining
		Average		Contractual
		Exercise		Term	Aggregate
	Shares	Price		(In Years)	Intrinsic Value
Outstanding at December 31, 2016	354,467	$	6.26
Granted	-		-
Exercised	-		-
Forfeited/cancelled/expired	-		-
Outstanding at March 31, 2017	354,467	$	6.26	2.37	$	6,377,515
Exercisable at March 31, 2017	350,937	$	6.18	2.32	$	6,342,180

The aggregate intrinsic value of outstanding and exercisable options above represents the total pre-tax intrinsic value (the difference between the Company’s closing stock price on March 31, 2017 and the exercise price, multiplied by the number of in-the-money options) that would have been received by the option holders had all option holders exercised their options on March 31, 2017. This amount changes based on the fair market value of the Parent Corporation’s stock. There were no options exercised during the three months ended March 31, 2017.

The below table represents information regarding restricted shares currently outstanding at March 31, 2017:

			Weighted-
			Average
	Nonvested		Grant Date
	Shares		Fair Value
Nonvested at December 31, 2016	111,273		$	16.81
Granted	56,164			23.82
Vested	(65,359	)		16.46
Forfeited/cancelled/expired	-			-
Nonvested at March 31, 2017	102,078		$	20.35

As of March 31, 2017, there was $1,920,809 of total unrecognized compensation cost related to nonvested restricted shares granted under the plans. The cost is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of 2.0 years.

A summary of the status of unearned performance unit awards and the change during the period is presented in the table below:

				Weighted
				Average Grant
	Units		Units	Date Fair
	(expected)		(maximum)	Value
Unearned at December 31, 2016	151,572		189,455	$	18.47
Awarded	24,891		37,336		22.75
Forfeited	-		-		-
Adjustments	(25,269	)	-		18.47
Unearned at March 31, 2017	151,194		226,791	$	19.19

At March 31, 2017, compensation cost of $1,216,882 related to non-vested performance unit awards not yet recognized is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of 1.6 years.

Effective January 1, 2017, the Company implemented ASU 2016-09,”Compensation - Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment. Under ASU 2016-09 all excess tax benefits and tax deficiencies related to share-based payment awards should be recognized as income tax expense or benefit in the income statement during the period in which they occur. Included in income tax expense for the first quarter of 2017 is a benefit of $133 thousand which resulted from the effect of implementing ASU 2016-09.