Note 7 - Pension and Post-retirement Benefits

3 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2017

Notes to Financial Statements

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

Note

7

:  Pension and Post-retirement Benefits

The Company has

two

defined benefit pension plans,

one

for U.S. employees and another for U.K. employees.

   The U.K. plan was closed to new entrants in fiscal

2009.

  The Company has a postretirement medical and life insurance benefit plan for U.S. employees. The Company also has defined contribution plans.  

On

December 21, 2016,

the Company amended the U.S. defined benefit pension plan to freeze benefit accruals effective

December 31, 2016.

Consequently, the Plan will be closed to new participants and current participants will

no

longer earn additional benefits after

December 31, 2016.

The

amendment of the defined benefit pension plan triggered a pension curtailment which required a remeasurement of the Plan's obligation as of

December 31, 2016.

The remeasurement resulted in a decrease in the benefit obligation of approximately

$6.9

million primarily due to an increase in the discount rate from

3.77%

to

4.31%,

with an additional

$4.2

million decrease resulting from the impact of the curtailment. These reductions in the Plan’s benefit obligation were recorded as other comprehensive income, net of taxes.

Net periodic benefit costs for all of the Company's defined benefit pension plans consist of the following (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended
	9/30/2017			9/30/2016
Service cost	$	-		$	791
Interest cost		1,511			1,552
Expected return on plan assets		(1,285	)		(1,306	)
Amortization of net loss		6			28
	$	232		$	1,065

Net periodic benefit costs for the Company's Postretirement Medical Plan consists of the following (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended
	9/30/2017			9/30/2016
Service cost	$	21		$	23
Interest cost		67			68
Amortization of prior service credit		(134	)		(168	)
Amortization of net loss		25			30
	$	(21	)	$	(47	)

For the

three

month period ended

September 30, 2017,

the Company contributed

$0.4

million to the U.S. and

$0.2

million to the UK pension plans. The Company estimates that it will contribute an additional

$4.0

million for the remainder of fiscal

2018.

The Company

’s pension plans use fair value as the market-related value of plan assets and recognize net actuarial gains or losses in excess of

ten

percent (

10%

) of the greater of the market-related value of plan assets or of the plans’ projected benefit obligation in net periodic (benefit) cost as of the plan measurement date. Net actuarial gains or losses that are less than

10%

of the thresholds noted above are accounted for as part of the accumulated other comprehensive loss.