Note 11 - Employee Benefit Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

(11) EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

We have a defined contribution 401(k) plan (the "inTEST 401(k) Plan") for our employees who work in the U.S. As a part of this plan, we may match a portion of employee contributions. This plan, including our discretionary employer matching contributions, is more fully discussed in Note 16 to the consolidated financial statements in our 2010 Form 10-K. Effective April 1, 2010, we restored the 401(k) Plan discretionary matching contribution for all domestic employees which had been eliminated for most of these employees at the beginning of 2009.

In addition to the employer matching contributions for which employees of our Temptronic subsidiary are eligible, upon the termination of the Temptronic Equity Participation Plan ("EPP"), we acknowledged that it was our intention to contribute $3,000 in the aggregate to the inTEST 401(k) Plan as a form of profit sharing (not to exceed $300 per year) for the benefit of Temptronic employees. The amount of these profit sharing contributions approximates the amount that we had been committed to contribute to the EPP as of its termination date. All such profit sharing contributions are at the discretion of management, and will be allocated to employees annually in essentially the same manner in which the shares held by the EPP had been allocated. The vesting provisions for these contributions are the same as those of the inTEST 401(k) Plan. Effective January 1, 2009, we temporarily suspended profit sharing contributions due to operating losses being incurred by Temptronic. Effective April 1, 2010, profit sharing contributions were reinstated. Accruals for profit sharing contributions totaling $225 and $150 were made during the nine months ended September 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively. Through September 30, 2011, we had made a total of $1,778 in profit sharing contributions. We have historically funded these obligations through the use of treasury shares during the quarter subsequent to the quarter in which we record the profit sharing liability, although management has the discretion to use cash to fund these obligations. Our current intention is to use cash to fund these obligations when our stock price is below $3.00 per share.