Retirement Plan

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2011

Retirement Plan

Retirement Plan

NOTE 14: Retirement Plan

We have a non-contributory defined benefit retirement plan that covers most of our non-union employees hired prior to January 1, 2007 and union employees prior to July 1, 2010. Our policy is to make contributions annually of not less than the minimum funding requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Benefits are based on the employee's years of service and compensation.

The retirement plan is closed to all new employees. To the extent an employee was hired prior to the plan closing date (January 1, 2007 for non-union employees and July 1, 2010 for union employees) and elected to participate in automatic contributions features under our defined contribution plan, their participation in future benefits of the retirement plan has been frozen.

The net periodic pension expense consisted of the following components:

	Three Months Ended June 30,						Six Months Ended June 30,
	2011			2010			2011			2010
	(In thousands)
Service cost – benefit earned during the period	$	1,268		$	1,156		$	2,535		$	2,298
Interest cost on projected benefit obligations		1,281			1,291			2,562			2,577
Expected return on plan assets		(1,339	)		(1,164	)		(2,678	)		(2,288	)
Amortization of prior service cost		97			98			195			195
Amortization of net loss		533			474			1,066			1,098
Net periodic pension expense	$	1,840		$	1,855		$	3,680		$	3,880

The expected long-term annual rate of return on plan assets is 8.5%. This rate was used in measuring 2011 and 2010 net periodic benefit cost. We expect to contribute $10 million to the retirement plan in 2011.