OTHER LONG-TERM ASSETS

12 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

7. OTHER LONG-TERM ASSETS

Other long-term assets consisted of the following:

	September 30,
	2012		2011

Auction rate securities	$	7,991	$	8,041
Other long-term assets		2,872		1,504
Other long-term investments		1,082		827
Total	$	11,945	$	10,372

As discussed in Note 3 of this Form 10-K, the two ARS that we owned as of September 30, 2012 are classified as long-term investments. The securities are credit enhanced with bond insurance to an AA- credit rating and all interest payments continue to be received on a timely basis. Although we believe these securities will ultimately be collected in full, we believe that it is not likely that we will be able to monetize the securities in our next business cycle (which for us is generally one year). We maintain a $234 pretax reduction ($151 net of tax) in fair value on one of the ARS that we first recognized in fiscal 2008. We continue to believe this decline in fair value is temporary based on: (1) the nature of the underlying debt; (2) the presence of bond insurance; (3) the fact that all interest payments have been received; (4) our successful monetization of $50 of this ARS during the quarter ended March 31, 2012; and (5) our intention not to sell the security nor be required to sell the security until the value recovers, which may be at maturity, given our current cash position, our expected future cash flow, and our unused debt capacity.

As discussed in Note 3 of this Form 10-K, we recorded a long-term asset and a corresponding long-term liability of $1,082 representing the fair value of our SERP investments as of September 30, 2012.