Equity Plans and Equity Based Compensation

The Company maintains three equity incentive plans under which stock options, restricted stock, and other equity incentive awards can be granted. At March 31, 2019, the Company has reserved 306,404 shares of common stock for the purpose of issuance pursuant to outstanding and future grants of options, restricted stock, and other equity awards to officers, directors and other employees of the Company.

For the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company granted no options. The Company recorded no stock compensation expense applicable to options during the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018 because all previously granted options were fully vested prior to 2007. In addition, there was no unrecognized option expense.

During the periods presented, awards of long-term incentives were granted in the form of restricted stock. Awards that were granted to management under a management incentive plan were granted in tandem with cash credit entitlements (typically in the form of 60% restricted stock grants and 40% cash credit entitlements). The management and employee restricted stock grants and tandem cash credit entitlements awarded will vest in three equal installments of 33.3% with the first annual vesting on December 5th of the year of the grant and on December 5th of the next two succeeding years. Awards that were granted to directors as additional retainer for their services do not include any cash credit entitlement. These director restricted stock grants are subject to forfeiture in the event that the recipient of the grant does not continue in service as a director of the Company through December 5th of the year after grant or does not satisfy certain meeting attendance requirements, at which time they generally vest 100 percent. For measuring compensation costs, restricted stock awards are valued based upon the market value of the common shares on the date of grant. During the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company granted awards of 24,780 and 34,860 shares of restricted stock, respectively. Total unvested restricted stock awards at March 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018 were 69,462 and 44,682, respectively.

The following table presents expense recorded for restricted stock and cash entitlements as well as the related tax information for the periods presented:



	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2019			2018

Restricted Stock Expense	$	278		$	306
Cash Entitlement Expense	170			158
Tax Effect	(117		)	(182		)
Net of Tax	$	331		$	282

Unrecognized expense associated with the restricted stock grants and cash entitlements totaled $2,931 and $3,449 as of March 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

The Company maintains an Employee Stock Purchase Plan whereby eligible employees have the option to purchase the Company’s common stock at a discount. The purchase price of the shares under this Plan has been set at 95% of the fair market value of the Company’s common stock as of the last day of the plan year. The plan provided for the purchase of up to 750,000 shares of common stock, which the Company may obtain by purchases on the open market or from private sources, or by issuing authorized but unissued common shares. At March 31, 2019, there were 539,293 shares available for future issuance under this plan. Funding for the purchase of common stock is from employee and Company contributions.

There was no expense recorded for the employee stock purchase plan during the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018. There was no unrecognized compensation expense as of March 31, 2019 for the Employee Stock Purchase Plan.