11. Employee Benefit Plans

6 Months Ended

Jul. 31, 2016

Compensation and Retirement Disclosure [Abstract]

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

11.        Employee Benefit Plans

We maintain a supplemental retirement income plan (“SRIP”) for certain former and current executives of Hooker Furniture Corporation. Additionally, we assumed Home Meridian’s pension plan and other retirement plan liabilities upon completion of the Home Meridian acquisition on February 1, 2016. Home Meridian’s legacy pension plan obligations relate to Pulaski Furniture Corporation, one of two entities combined to form HMI. These legacy pension plan obligations include:

§ the Pulaski Furniture Corporation Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (“SERP”) for certain former executives. The SERP is an unfunded plan and all benefits are paid solely out of our general assets; and

§ the Pulaski Furniture Corporation Pension Plan (“Pension Plan”) for former Pulaski Furniture Corporation employees.

The SRIP, SERP and Pension plans are all “frozen” and we do not expect to add additional employees to any of these plans in the future. Pension plan assets include a range of mutual fund asset classes and are measured at fair value using level one inputs, which are quoted prices in active markets.

The consolidated liability for our pension plan obligations at July 31, 2016 and January 31, 2016 were $16.8 million and $8.2 million, respectively, and are shown in our condensed consolidated balance sheets as follows:

	July 31,		January 31,
	2016		2016
Accrued salaries, wages and benefits (current portions)
SRIP	$	354	$	354
SERP		261		-
Pension		1,191		-
Total current portion	$	1,806	$	354
Long-term portions
SRIP	$	8,009	$	7,799
SERP		2,123		-
Total deferred compensation*		10,132		7,799
Pension Plan		4,881		-
Total deferred compensation and pension plans		15,013	$	7,799
Consolidated pension liabilities	$	16,819	$	8,153

*Total Deferred Compensation shown in the Long-Term Liabilities section of our Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets is $10.7 million at July 31, 2016 and $8.4 million at January 31, 2016. These totals include the SRIP and SERP amounts shown in the table above, as well as miscellaneous additional long-term compensation-related items unrelated to these plans.

Components of net periodic benefit cost for the SRIP, SERP and pension plans are included in our condensed consolidated statements of income under selling and administrative expenses.

	Thirteen Weeks Ended					Twenty-Six Weeks Ended
	July 31,			August 2,		July 31,			August 2,
	2016			2015		2016			2015
Net periodic benefit costs
SRIP:
Service cost	$	94		$	101	$	187		$	202
Interest cost		85			72		170			144
Actuarial loss (gain)		(18	)		45		(35	)		90
Total SRIP		161			218		322			436
SERP:
Interest cost		22			-		44			-
Total SERP		22			-		44			-
Pension Plan:
Interest cost		187			-		376			-
Expected return on pension plan assets		(197	)		-		(395	)		-
Expected administrative expenses		70			-		140			-
Total Pension Plan		60			-		121			-
Consolidated net periodic benefit costs	$	243		$	218		487		$	436

The expected long-term rate of return on Pension Plan assets is 7.0% as ofthe Plan’s most recent valuation date of February 2, 2016.

We contributed $292,000 in required contributions to the Pension Plan in the fiscal 2017 first half and expect to contribute an additional $292,000 in required contributions to the Pension Plan during the second half fiscal 2017. The SRIP and SERP plans are unfunded plans. Consequently, we expect to pay a total of approximately $300,000 in benefit payments from our general assets during the remainder of fiscal 2017 to fund SRIP and SERP payments.