Note 10 - Pension Plans

6 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2016

Notes to Financial Statements

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

10. Pension Plans

We maintain three defined benefit pension plans: one for United Kingdom employees, one for German employees and one for Philippine employees. We deposit funds for the United Kingdom and Philippine plans with financial institutions and make payments to former German employees directly. We accrue for the unfunded portion of the obligations. The measurement date for projected benefit obligations and plan assets is March 31. As of September 30, 2016, the German defined benefit plan was completely unfunded and we accrued for its obligations. The United Kingdom and German plans have been curtailed. As such, the plans are closed to new entrants and no credit is provided for additional periods of service. We expect to contribute approximately $1.1 million to the United Kingdom and the Philippines plans in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017.

The net periodic pension expense includes the following components (in thousands):

	Three Months Ended						Six Months Ended
	September 30,						September 30,
	2016			2015			2016			2015
	(unaudited)						(unaudited)
Service cost	$	28		$	25		$	56		$	51
Interest cost on projected benefit obligation		326			371			678			739
Expected return on plan assets		(296	)		(442	)		(619	)		(880	)
Recognized actuarial loss		44			45			92			90
Net periodic pension expense	$	102		$	(1	)	$	207		$	-

Information on Plan Assets

We report and measure the plan assets of our defined benefit pension plans at fair value. The table below sets forth the fair value of our plan assets as of September 30, 2016 and March 31, 2016, using the same three-level hierarchy of fair-value inputs described in Note 4, “Fair Value” (in thousands):

	September 30, 2016						March 31, 2016
Description	Level 1		Level 2		Total		Level 1		Level 2		Total
	(unaudited)						(unaudited)
Cash and cash funds	$	39	$	-		39	$	121	$	-	$	121
Equity		423		-		423		351		-		351
Fixed interest		1,244		91		1,335		1,225		96		1,321
Mutual funds		13,908		13,626		27,534		13,527		13,394		26,921
Total	$	15,614	$	13,717		29,331	$	15,224	$	13,490	$	28,714