Retirement plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2020

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Retirement plans

Retirement plans

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 September 30, 2020, were $121.1 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 Sept. 30,				Nine months ended Sept. 30,
	2020		2019		2020		2019
Service cost-benefits earned during the period	$	1	$	2	$	5	$	6
Interest cost on benefit obligation	4,868		5,761		14,605		17,284
Expected return on plan assets	(7,765)		(6,580)		(23,294)		(19,740)
Amortization of prior service cost	23		23		68		68
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,541		1,521		4,622		4,562
Pension payment timing related charge	—		—		—		686
(Gains from) expense for company-sponsored retirement plans	$	(1,332)	$	727	$	(3,994)	$	2,866

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 nine months ended September 30, 2020 we made no cash contributions to the TRP, and made $2.4 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2019. We made benefit payments to participants of the SERP of $4.1 million and $6.0 million, during nine months ended September 30, 2020 and 2019, 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 payments of $1.8 million to our SERP participants in 2020.