NOTE 5 - EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

The Company has a defined benefit pension plan covering substantially all full-time and eligible part-time associates and a Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (“SERP”) covering its executive officers.

The components of the net periodic benefit costs for the Company’s qualified benefit pension plan were as follows:

The components of the net periodic benefit costs for the Company’s SERP were as follows:

Effective December 31, 2015, the Company changed the method used to estimate the service and interest components of net periodic benefit cost for the defined benefit and supplemental executive retirement plans. This new estimation approach discounts the individual expected cash flows underlying the service cost and interest cost using the applicable spot rates derived from the yield curve used to discount the cash flows for the benefit obligations.  Historically, the estimated service and interest cost components utilized a single weighted-average discount rate derived from the yield curve used to measure the benefit obligations at the beginning of the period. The Company elected this change to provide a more precise measurement of service and interest costs by improving the correlation between projected benefit cash flows to the corresponding spot yield curve rates.  The change was accounted for as a change in accounting estimate that is inseparable from a change in accounting principle and was accounted for prospectively.  While the benefit obligations for the plans measured under this approach was unchanged, the more granular application of the spot rates decreased the combined service and interest costs for the defined benefit retirement plan for fiscal 2016 by $0.7 million and the supplemental executive retirement plans by $34,000.