Employee Benefit Plans

We sponsor noncontributory defined benefit pension plans and non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans ("SERPs"). The accrual for future benefits has been frozen in our defined benefit pension plans and SERPs.

We sponsor a defined contribution plan covering substantially all non-union and certain union employees. We match a portion of employees' voluntary contributions to this plan.

The components of the employee benefit plans expense consisted of the following:



	Three Months Ended September 30,						Nine Months Ended September 30,
(in thousands)	2018			2017			2018			2017

Interest cost	$	5,962		$	6,504		$	17,812		$	19,475
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses	(5,734		)	(4,360		)	(17,199		)	(13,079		)
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,026			1,150			2,867			3,318
Total for defined benefit pension plans	1,254			3,294			3,480			9,714
Multi-employer plans	50			58			141			191
SERPs	2,275			257			2,826			771
Defined contribution plan	2,137			2,300			6,908			7,161
Net periodic benefit cost	5,716			5,909			13,355			17,837
Allocated to discontinued operations	(132		)	(179		)	(509		)	(547		)
Net periodic benefit cost — continuing operations	$	5,584		$	5,730		$	12,846		$	17,290

We contributed $5.8 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERPs and $13.7 million for our defined benefit pension plans during the nine months ended September 30, 2018. During the remainder of 2018, we anticipate contributing an additional $0.7 million to fund the SERPs' benefit payments and an additional $3.5 million to fund our qualified defined benefit pension plans.

In the third quarter of 2018, we recognized a $2.0 million settlement charge related to lump-sum distributions from our SERP. Settlement charges are recorded when total lump-sum distributions for a plan's year exceed the total projected service cost and interest cost for that plan year.

In November of 2018, we merged $306 million of pension assets and $419 million of pension obligations from our Scripps Pension Plan (”SPP”) into the Journal Communications, Inc. Plan (“JCI Plan”) that we also sponsor. The SPP retained pension assets and pension obligations totaling $9 million. Following the merger, we terminated the SPP and purchased a single premium group annuity contract from an insurance company in the amount of $53.5 million for the terminating SPP participants and certain participants in the newly merged JCI Plan. Upon issuance of the group annuity contract, the insurance company assumed all investment risk associated with the assets that were delivered as the annuity contract premium and assumed the obligation to make future annuity payments to approximately 600 remaining retirees receiving pension benefits in the SPP and approximately 1,500 remaining retirees receiving pension benefits in the newly merged JCI Plan. There was no change to the pension benefits for any plan participants as a result of these transactions and the purchase of the group annuity contract was funded directly by assets of the SPP and JCI Plan. In the fourth quarter of 2018, we expect to recognize a one-time non-cash settlement charge of $10 million to $12 million in connection with these transactions.