Retirement plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2024

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Retirement plans

NOTE 5 – Retirement plans

We have various defined benefit retirement plans. Our principal defined benefit pension plan is the TEGNA Retirement Plan (TRP). The total net pension obligations, including both current and non-current liabilities, as of March 31, 2024, were $75.5 million, of which $5.8 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 TEGNA Supplemental Retirement Plan (SERP), are presented in the following table (in thousands):

	Quarter ended Mar. 31,
	2024			2023
Interest cost on benefit obligation	$	5,675		$	6,150
Expected return on plan assets		(5,500	)		(5,225	)
Amortization of prior service cost (credit)		25			(125	)
Amortization of actuarial loss		1,475			1,575
Expense for company-sponsored retirement plans	$	1,675		$	2,375

Benefits no longer accrue for TRP and SERP participants as a result of amendments to the plans in past years, and as such we no longer incur a 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, 2024 and 2023, 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 ended March 31, 2024 and 2023. Based on actuarial projections and funding levels, we expect to make cash payments of $6.9 million to the TRP in 2024. We expect to make additional cash payments of $4.9 million to our SERP participants during the remainder of 2024.