Retirement plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2022

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 primarily 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, 2022, were $62.4 million, of which $6.0 million is recorded as a current obligation within accrued liabilities on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet.

Pension costs (income), 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,
	2022		2021
Interest cost on benefit obligation	$	4,300	$	3,950
Expected return on plan assets	(4,900)		(8,650)
Amortization of prior service cost	(125)		25
Amortization of actuarial loss	1,100		1,200
Expense (income) from company-sponsored retirement plans	$	375	$	(3,475)

Benefits no longer accrue for substantially all TRP and SERP participants as a result of amendments to the plans in 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, 2022 and 2021, we did not make any cash contributions to the TRP. We made benefit payments to participants of the SERP of $0.9 million during both of the three month periods ending March 31, 2022 and 2021. Based on actuarial projections and funding levels, we do not expect to make any cash payments to the TRP in 2022 (as none are required based on our current funding levels). We expect to make additional cash payments of $5.0 million to our SERP participants during the remainder of 2022.