BENEFIT PLANS

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

BENEFIT PLANS [Abstract]

BENEFIT PLANS

NOTE H:  BENEFIT PLANS

The Company provides a qualified defined benefit pension to qualified employees and retirees, and other post-retirement health and life insurance benefits to certain retirees, an unfunded supplemental pension plan for certain key executives, and an unfunded stock balance plan for certain of its nonemployee directors.  The Company accrues for the estimated cost of these benefits through charges to expense during the years that employees earn these benefits.  The net periodic benefit cost for the three and nine months ended September 30 is as follows:

	Pension Benefits				Post-retirement Benefits
	Three Months Ended		Nine months ended		Three Months Ended		Nine months ended
	September 30,		September 30,		September 30,		September 30,
(000's omitted)	2011	2010	2011	2010	2011	2010	2011	2010
Service cost	$735	$666	$2,205	$1,996	$0	$0	$0	$0
Interest cost	1,191	977	3,344	2,932	38	49	115	147
Expected return on plan assets	(2,167)	(1,618)	(6,101)	(4,853)	0	0	0	0
Amortization of unrecognized net loss	474	605	1,422	1,816	2	4	6	13
Amortization of prior service cost	(37)	(47)	(112)	(141)	(264)	(264)	(793)	(793)
Net periodic benefit cost	$196	$583	$758	$1,750	($224)	($211)	($672)	($633)

Effective September 30, 2011, the Wilber National Bank Retirement Plan was merged into the Community Bank System, Inc. Pension Plan and the combined plan was revalued resulting in an additional unamortized actuarial loss of approximately $17 million, due primarily to a loss on plan assets for the first nine months of 2011 and lowering the discount rate to 4.4% from 5.0% at December 31, 2010.