Retirement plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

We have various defined benefit retirement plans. Our principal defined benefit pension plan is the TEGNA Retirement Plan (TRP). The disclosure table below includes the pension expenses of the TRP and the TEGNA Supplemental Retirement Plan (SERP). The total net pension obligations, including both current and non-current liabilities, as of March 31, 2020, were $128.7 million, of which $6.8 million is recorded as a current obligation within accrued liabilities on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet.

Pension costs, which primarily include costs for the qualified TRP and the non-qualified SERP, are presented in the following table (in thousands):



	Quarter ended Mar. 31,
	2020			2019

Service cost-benefits earned during the period	$	2		$	—
Interest cost on benefit obligation	4,858			5,750
Expected return on plan assets	(7,750		)	(6,575		)
Amortization of prior service (credit) cost	(42		)	25
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,600			1,500
(Gains from) expense for company-sponsored retirement plans	$	(1,332	)	$	700

Benefits no longer accrue for substantially all TRP and SERP participants as a result of amendments to the plans in the past years and as such we no longer incur a significant amount of the service cost component of pension expense. All other components of our pension expense presented above are included within the “Other non-operating items, net” line item of the Consolidated Statements of Income.

During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, we did not make any cash contributions to the TRP. During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, we made benefit payments to participants of the SERP of $2.3 million and $0.9 million, respectively. Based on actuarial projections and funding levels, we do not expect to make any cash payments to the TRP in 2020. We expect to make additional cash contributions of $4.4 million to our SERP participants in 2020.