8. Employee benefit plans:

The Company provides an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”) and a Retirement Profit Sharing Plan. The Company also maintains Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans (“SERPs”) and an Employees’ Pension Plan, which is currently frozen.

For the three months ended March 31, salaries and employee benefits expense includes approximately $306 in 2020 and $340 in 2019 relating to the employee benefit plans.



	Pension Benefits
Three Months Ended March 31,	2020		2019
Components of net periodic pension benefit:
Interest cost	$	54	$	128
Expected return on plan assets		(123)		(217)
Amortization of unrecognized net gain		22		45
Net periodic benefit	$	(47)	$	(44)

The 2008 long-term incentive plan (“2008 Plan”) allowed for eligible participants to be granted equity awards. No awards may be made under the 2008 Plan after January 15, 2018.

In May 2017, the Company’s stockholders approved the 2017 equity incentive plan (“2017 Plan”). The 2017 Plan allows for eligible participants to be granted equity awards. Under the 2017 Plan the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors has the authority to, among other things:

Select the persons to be granted awards under the 2017 Plan.

Determine the type, size and term of awards.

Determine whether such performance objectives and conditions have been met.

Accelerate the vesting or excercisability of an award.

Persons eligible to receive awards under the 2017 Plan include directors, officers, employees, consultants and other service providers of the Company and its subsidiaries.

As of March 31, 2020, there were 54,506 shares of the Company’s common stock available for grant as awards pursuant to the 2017 Plan. The 2008 Plan expired in January 2018 but remained in effect in accordance with its terms to govern outstanding awards under that plan. If any outstanding awards under the 2017 Plan are forfeited by the holder or canceled by the Company, the underlying shares would be available for regrant to others.

The 2017 Plan authorizes grants of stock options, stock appreciation rights, cash awards, performance awards, restricted stock and restricted stock units.

For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, the Company granted awards of restricted stock and restricted stock units under the 2017 Plan, with an aggregate of 16,854 shares and 17,345 shares underlying such awards, respectively.

The non-performance restricted stock grants made in 2020, 2019 and 2018 vest equally over three years from the grant date. The performance-based restricted stock units vest over three fiscal years and include conditions based on the Company’s three year cumulative diluted earnings per share and three-year average return on equity that determines the number of restricted stock units that may vest.

The Company expenses the fair value of all-share based compensation over the requisite service period commencing at grant date. The fair value of restricted stock is expensed on a straight-line basis. The Company periodically assesses the probability of achievement of the performance criteria and adjusts the amount of compensation expense accordingly. Compensation is recognized over the vesting period. The Company classifies share-based compensation for employees within “salaries and employee benefits expense” on the consolidated statements of income and comprehensive income.

The Company recognized net compensation costs of $5 for the three months ended March 31, 2020 for awards granted under the 2017 Plan. The Company recognized compensation expense of $83 for the three months ended March 31, 2019 for awards granted under the 2017 Plan. As of March 31, 2020, the Company had $861 of unrecognized compensation expense associated with restricted stock awards. The remaining cost is expected to be recognized over a weighted average vesting period of just under 2.6 years.