Note 9 - Pension and Post-retirement Benefits

3 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Notes to Financial Statements

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

Note

9

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

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

2009.

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 is closed to new participants and current participants will

no

longer earn additional benefits after

December 31, 2016.

Net periodic benefit costs for all of the Company's defined benefit pension plans are recorded in Other income (expense) in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and consist of the following (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended
	0 9 /3 0 /2019			0 9 /3 0 /2018
Service cost	$	-		$	-
Interest cost		1,349			1,506
Expected return on plan assets		(1,294	)		(1,284	)
Amortization of net loss		10			7
	$	65		$	229

Net periodic benefit costs for the Company's Postretirement Medical Plan are recorded in Other income (expense) except the Service cost component recoded in operations in the Consolidated Statements of Operations and consists of the following (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended
	0 9 /3 0 /2019			0 9 /3 0 /2018
Service cost	$	18		$	18
Interest cost		60			66
Amortization of prior service credit		(134	)		(134	)
Amortization of net loss		21			7
	$	(35	)	$	(43	)

For the

three

month period ended

September 30, 2019,

the Company contributed

$1.0

million to the U.S. and

$0.2

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

$6.5

million for the remainder of fiscal

2020.

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 accumulated other comprehensive loss.