Hey, guys. It's Patrick and Chad. Welcome to Sales Tax Game Day, brought to you by Zakcast. Uh, we're excited to get started. It's a little late this month 'cause of the holiday. Uh, we are about, I don't know, a day behind. Is that right? Little further in the month. It's also the quarterly payment, so it should be a little fun to talk about. We have not looked at the data yet, so we're gonna do that live, uh, during Zakcast and, uh, and get it. So Chad, how you doing, man?

I'm good, buddy. How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. That was like the longest intro we've ever had, 'cause, you know, I did it and it made me a little nervous to get started.

Yeah. You're more of a talker than me anyway, so.

Are you-

All right. You ready to see the top line number?

I, I am ready to see the top line number. What, what do we got? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait.

Whoa.

Let's... Can we, can we-

Do you want the yard first?

... can we talk about where we were projection-wise before we do that?

Uh, sure. Let's see. Uh, Patrick, your projection was what?

Minus 1.78. You'll have to remind me. I don't have it in front of me.

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay.

Doug Martella, other team Zak member, projected-

Finance

... .82% growth. Uh, and then Allison did not submit, so the only other projection from us was mine at negative .525. Okay.

So the Canadian, the Canadian was positive. If anybody doesn't know, Doug-

I mean, our-

... Doug, our finance guy, is a Canadian.

I think that Canadians tend to be pretty positive, don't they? Is that a stereotype?

I think it's a stereotype, yeah. Yeah.

All right. Here we go. Drum roll. Whoa.

What is the number?

Oh, wow.

Hold on. No. Y- you gotta... Is it positive or negative? Let's start there.

Are you ready for this?

Yes.

6.07% growth.

Whoa. That's a crazy number.

That means the winner of Sales Tax Game Day for November 2020, you know her and love her-

Is it Huff?

... Brittany Huff.

Oh, Huff. Man, that's crazy.

So.

What was her projection?

Congratulations, Brittany. Uh, she projected .555% growth.

I just-

So-

I just can't even

... we did not have, we did not have very many, uh, people projecting positive growth this month.

Pretty much all her projections came in negative. I think... I don't know, do you think it's because we show them what our projections are when they're making projections? Do you think that, that, uh, that was a little tilted there?

It's definitely possible. That's why I was kinda wary about doing our projections, like, visibly on the, on the site.

Uh-huh.

But it's also tough, because this stuff is never a straight line trend, especially with sales tax. You can have several months of great growth and then all of a sudden a random decrease, and vice versa. So especially given the environment that we're in, it's tough to get a really good sense on how things are going across the whole state, right? Uh, it's, it's a little bit easier when you kinda isolate to a region or a particular city, but looking across the whole state, there's just so much diversity that you never know.

It's a, it's a gutsy call by Brittany, you think about it. She sees our projections that are there, right? She comes out and she's like, "It's gonna be a strong five plus percent month," when we've had some pretty negative months, right? I mean, we've, we've had some really flat months.

Yeah. The last two months have been pretty rough.

Yeah.

Now, s- so she, she didn't project 5% growth, she projected .5% growth.

Oh, okay.

But because she was the only person who projected growth, she was the closest.

Way... A lot of doomsdayers out there in the state of Texas this month. Uh, but yeah. I mean, it-

That's, like, understandable

... positive growth. So fun thing we get to do now is let's dig in and see where that growth was. The, the biggest one that pops out to me just, I mean, right away when I start looking at the data, is the DFW Metroplex and Houston Woodlands. Uh, those two metropolitan areas saw significant increases. You know, you saw a 7.43% increase in Dallas-Fort Worth. That's a-

Yeah, a 5.17% growth in Houston, which compared to last month of 7% down.

Well, and considering the oil-

It's great

... and, you know, considering the oil and gas sector's taken a hit, Houston's got some dependencies there as well. Um, so yeah, that's wild. So I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with the CSAs. I'm just gonna dig into the Dallas-Fort Worth area, open up that region since we already started talking about it, and, uh, get an idea of exactly, uh, where we were with each of those communities. So.

Yeah. We got a lot of green in the DFW area, some of the mid cities, and then actually the, in the Dallas County area.

Wow. I mean, the Dallas side is... Yeah, it's like a... If, if you're looking at this picture, maybe we can, like, put a screenshot of this picture in the show notes so people can kinda see this, but it looks like a, it looks like almost a target, like a shooting target, with Dallas kind of being the center of that target. It's red, and then kinda everything around it and surrounding it, uh, is green. So, you know, the Fort Worth side looked pretty healthy. I mean, it, it looks like the Fort Worth side was doing, doing pretty well there.

Okay. So hold your horses here.

Okay.

So Dallas showed a 3%, 3.86% decline. That's a drop of about a million dollars, but a negative $3 million audit adjustment. So if you take that out, they're actually-

Positive two million

... in much better shape. Yeah.

Yeah, they're positive by $2 million there, so.

Yeah, which is almost probably about 7% growth if you take that audit adjustment out. So that's, that's not bad news.

If the city of Dallas wants to call us, we will gladly tell them where those audit dollars came from. Uh, I'm sure there's gonna be some questions there on that one. But, uh-

There's some big audit adjustments here. You got Fort Worth with growth of 2%, $316,000 increase, but a negative half a million dollar audit adjustment. So that's $3.5 million of audit reductions in Dallas and Fort Worth. Grand Prairie with a $240,000 reduction based on audits. So just in the top 10 here in the DFW area, quite a bit of audit movement.

Really feeling good about Grand Prairie. 8.9% up.

Despite that adjustment

Despite that adjustment, even when you take that adjustment into account, they'd e- they'd even be up even, what, another 3%. Same thing with Fort Worth. If you took that out, they would be up another 3, 3.5% as well. Um, so yeah-

Arlington's up almost 13%. You got Frisco up 4%, uh, Plano at 6%, McKinney at 12%. You got some pretty good numbers here in, in the DFW area.

Lewisville with a huge number, 16%. I mean, these are, these are good numbers. Uh, here's, here's a big one 'cause they, they have seen some significant declines over the past, uh, two to three months, but the city of Roanoke was up 56%, which-

Wow

... you know, you just gotta think, you know, Roanoke has a lot of, you know, dining and things like that, so seems like people were more willing to go out and get things done. Ob- obviously-

Yeah, but that's-

... we're talking about November sales tax coming in November, so we are talking about September sales, right?

Right.

Yeah.

And compared to last year where there was no pandemic-

Yes

... that's a big increase. So I, I'm curious to see what that would be composed of. But, uh, Grapevine, I, I feel like Grapevine struggled the last couple of months too.

They have.

They were down-

Yeah

... 20%. Yeah, so, uh, Grapevine, phew. Yeah, they've been down-

So what would happen in, what would happen in September in Grapevine? It's the largest what festival in Texas? Come on. Goofy facts.

Oh, sorry. Oh, it's the, the Wine Fest, right?

Yeah. Grape, Grape Fest is in September, so-

Grape Fest, yeah.

So yeah-

Sorry, I was looking at numbers here

... now you can truly see the impact of Grape Fest in there. I mean, you know, 20% decline in Grapevine.

Wow. Okay. So yeah, Grapevine's been... They've been struggling since January.

Yeah.

That's the last time they had positive growth, and it was basically flat. Last time they had really good positive growth was last November at 15%. So some of that, some of that decrease is probably accounted for by the fact that last year was really good growth. Uh, but still, that's a, that's a tough one.

Hey, I have good news for Grape-

So-

I have good news for Grapevine now.

Go for it.

Dr. Fauci says things will be better by April.

There you go.

So-

The Fauci has spoken.

The Fauci has spoken.

So let's keep going here. Denton up 9%, Richardson 29%. The Colony, they had a big month last month too, but 81% growth.

Yeah, I mean, you start looking at Hurst is still down. Um, you know, they were down 4%. Uh, that's a number of months that they've been down as well. Uh, Addison is still down 11%. Uh, just looking at kind of the, the negative numbers on there that have popped out. They've, they've been consistently negative here for a little while.

There's some really big numbers here, though. Uh, let's see.

Terrell-

Little Elm, 20%, Granbury 14%, Denison 21%, NS 31%. I mean, there's some really big numbers in here. You gotta assume that's probably just some pent-up, um, pent-up demand from the last couple of months of declines. Can't, I mean, I can't imagine those numbers sustaining over the next few months, but-

And Hudson Oaks-

We'll take it

... 12.49% positive. Continues to grow at rapid, rapid pace.

Salina's up 56%, Anna's up 57%.

Yeah.

I mean, even some of the smaller cities, Mineral Wells, Melissa, Crowley, all seeing good growth.

Absolutely. Yeah.

All right, DFW. Let's move to Houston. We'll just continue our trend probably this month of going all over the state with no particular discernible purpose.

No or- no order whatsoever.

Okay, so where are we? Houston is, as a whole, up 5.17%. That's growth of almost $6 million for the region. And how are we looking here? Houston, 2% growth.

Yep. Big audit adjustment, though. They had a huge audit adjustment of 1.7, uh, million, and they only had growth over the month of 1.2. So without that audit adjustment, Houston's actually still negative. Conroe, though, Conroe with a really strong number, coming in at 35% up. Had a small audit adjustment, but even with that audit s- audit adjustment, they were way up. Uh, Sugar Land continues to be down, uh, 7.58%. Big shopping destination, uh, retail.

Yeah.

So-

Sugar Land looks quite a bit like, like, uh, Grapevine. Down, last time they were up was March. They've had, uh, almost nine, nine, 22, 15%. They've had some, had a rough go of it the last couple of months.

Yeah, League City, Rosenberg, both really strong. 27 and 21% respectively.

Yeah. We've seen that kind of growth from League City for a while now.

Yeah.

43%. I mean, they've been above 25% since July.

And if you drive down 45, like, going towards Galveston, I mean, you can really see it in League City. You can see all the growth. You can see all the retail growth that they've got there. Uh, you know, there's quite a bit going on there, sports complexes, things like that, and some of, most of that business has picked up as well. Once again, though, Galveston, uh, in September, you know, saw another decline, and I think they're gonna continue to see declines 'cause they had to cancel most of their fall festivals as well. So Galveston's down 2.82%. Um, Stafford, a sales tax-dependent city, a city after my own heart, uh, 21% up. Tomball 7% up. Katy 18.45% up. Just FYI, the Katy Tigers lost their first district football game last week, just for anybody who wants to know that. I think it was, like, the first district football loss since, like, 2005. Somewhere around there. But important note, the last time we lost a district game, we also won the state championship in that same year, so I have the same hopes this year.

Well, good for you.

Yep.

I'm sure you were a big contributor to that.

I try, I try my best to, uh, to just get in there on key plays and, and be good for my team. So-

Let's see. Humble up 13%, Dickinson 6.3, La Porte 2.3, Missouri City 15.1. So yeah, I mean, again, some big numbers here in the Houston area.

Yeah, even when you get outside the city, um, you start looking at, uh, Brenham. Brenham's up 8%. You know, Shenandoah, uh, had a strong month as well at 8%. Uh, Fulshear 11.9%. Fulshear's just been, uh, I mean, they, they've just been growing like a weed, uh, from a sales tax standpoint, been doing a fantastic job there.And, uh, you know, Magnolia's up, you know, 58%. So a lot of these just really far out suburbs, you know, 30 to 45-minute drives from the downtown area easily are, are doing really, really well. Uh, and then you've got some interesting ones, uh, like Waller. Uh, Waller's home to a big Buc-ee store, so it's kind of an interesting one. Uh, maybe showing some travel impacts there. Waller's down 17.24%. Uh, it's off 290 there as you leave, as you leave Houston to go towards College Station or Brenham.

You know what's really been interesting going through this the last few months is just how much variety there is in these economies, even when they're, like, right next to each other. I mean, you could have neighbors that have 20, 30% per- just percentage point swings between them.

I think it's really interesting 'cause just from, like, a graduate school perspective, I think we're taught that, you know, sales tax is really elastic, and it follows, like, this fairly standard curve of, of, of how it's impacted by, by economic downturns. And, and even in, like, uh, like, 2008, 2009, and now, that still is a very city-by-city process based on how, uh, diversified their economy is and what type of businesses they have there. And this is a very different downturn than we've seen in other places. I mean, I don't even know technically if you could call it a downturn, 'cause most of your cities in the state are technically positive, right? But it's just been very interesting. You know, your cities that are heavily retail-based or, you know, heavily based on kinda your, your economy that's driven by tourism or, uh, or vacations or things like that, they're more impacted, for sure. Um, but some of your cities that have, like, your basic needs, stores and groceries and furniture and things like that, they tend to be doing pretty well. So I j- I just, I just don't know if that typical grad school process that we look at really does a good job. Um-

Yeah, I mean, it, it, it does if you think of sales tax as basically just standard retail shopping.

Correct.

But there's a lot more to it and a lot more components that can help you weather storms like these. How about we jump over to San Antonio?

We're going in order right now, which is, which is kinda interesting.

Yeah, we're-- Yeah. It's, it's kinda still, like, scattershotting across the state, but we're, we're actually going in order from size this time.

And about this time I usually drop to the bottom of the list and just annoy the life out of Chad, 'cause then-

Yeah

... you know, we're gonna forget somebody or we're gonna miss it. But yeah, San Antonio region overall, what'd we do overall in that region?

4.46% growth.

Okay.

That's pretty good. San Antonio itself up 2%. New Braunfels, uh, 11%. Schertz up e- 10 and a half percent. Let's see. Live Oak eight and a half. Selma 20- almost 24%.

Yeah. Big growth for Selma. Uh, Boerne, uh, 13.82%.

Yeah. Seguin 11 and a half.

Yeah.

Not till you get down to Wincrest do you see a decline in the San Antonio area, and that's about 10.3% decline. Um, looks like it's mostly an audit adjustment of about $100,000, so they actually would've seen some positive growth, uh, except for that.

And then you gotta get all the way to Lytle. Uh, I mean, you gotta jump in-

Lytle became a decline.

Yeah, you gotta jump in at, like, 20 cities, no, 10 cities before you get to Lytle, who had just a small decline of .38%. Um, and you start to get into those little areas. Alamo Heights, uh, saw some growth. Hey, is that our first month of growth for Alamo Heights?

Let's see.

While he's looking at that, Hondo saw a big increase of 20 point-

No, no, no. Alamo Heights hasn't had a decline since June.

Oh, okay. I thought it was-

Yeah, so.

Okay.

I think it was, it was Balcones Heights.

It was Balcones Heights. Yeah, I think so. That's the one we've seen some-

Yeah, Balcones Heights has struggled, but they had some growth, 4.1% this month.

Yeah. Not bad. Hill Country Village, 19%. So, uh, I mean, San Antonio region-

I think-

... had some pretty good growth.

Looks pretty good.

Looks pretty good. Yeah. I, I don't know if they're the winner of the best, best region, though.

We'll have to, we'll have to keep looking.

So jumping to McAllen area. That's-

Yeah, this is a pretty good one, 13 and a half percent growth.

True South Texas, right?

Yes, not like the Houston South Texas.

Also South Texas. But, uh, McAllen was up 9.53%. Edinburg, uh, was up 16.97. Pharr, 21%. Mission, uh, 13. Weslaco, 14. You gotta go all the way to Mercedes to see your first city that was down, a big border crossing city, 3.46% down.

So all in all, McAllen, Edinburg in pretty good shape. Uh, Corpus Christi, Kingsville, Alice. So this is actually some pretty good news for Corpus Christi, who's been down the last couple months. They had about a 4.2% growth in November. Last time they had growth was back in August, so, uh, that's, that's a good sign. But let's see. You got Portland and Kingsville, all with some growth. Alice down about 12 and a half, uh, 12.3%. But Port Aransas, Rockport with some growth as well. Ingleside down 49%.

Wow. Let's look into that.

Whenever you see numbers like that, man, sometimes it's just there was a random payment from the previous year-

S-

... that, uh, that causes that decline, and it's not necessarily a real drop.

So November, it looked-

But for Ingleside it does look like a real drop.

It does look like a real drop, yeah.

Yeah.

So I wonder if they have maybe, like, a major manufacturer or something like that there that shut down for a little while. I don't know. So Sinton was up 38.26%. Uh, Mathis was up 14%. Um, and big growth on small numbers, Bishop, Texas was up 100% for a total of $64,000 payment this month.

Yeah. Odem up big. Gregory up big. Yeah, these, these smaller collectors had some pretty substantial growth.

Yeah.

Gregory up 76%. Uh, San Diego up 21. Orange Grove up 49, so.

El Paso, Las Cruces.

This is the first time we've gone to El Paso this early ever, I think.

Yeah, usu- usually El Paso gets left to the end. I'm not sure why.

It's that other time zone thing. Just so far over there.

So far over there. We're just curious if they're part of another state. Uh, but yeah, El Paso is, uh, is up. That, that region is up as well.

Yeah, nine-

9%

... 9% for the regionUh, El Paso proper up four point one percent. Uh, I'm sorry, that's the, uh, moving average. Eight point four percent for the month.

Mm-hmm.

They did have a pretty good size audit adjustment, but still, still growth.

Horizon City. Now, granted El Paso is the only place in Texas right now that's on, like, full COVID lockdown.

Kind of.

So-

Right. They're fighting it.

Yeah.

Or they're fighting over what, what it actually means, what the rules-

No, I th-

... are actually gonna be.

I, I think so. But they're, you know, they've got a curfew, and the hospitals are overwhelmed, and, you know, it's, it's all over the news right now in November, right? But in September, uh, when, when these sales were made, it looks like all these cities were doing pretty healthy. I mean, Horizon City up 30%, Socorro 20, almost 25, Anthony at 15, almost 16. And the only, the only major loser in that region for a city that actually brings in quite a bit of sales tax money, uh, well it's not even that much, but, uh, Vinton, Texas was down 44%, but they only bring in about, you know, 30 to 50 a month. Not, not a ton, but, you know, El Paso obviously is the bellwether there. They kind of carry the region, and they had a positive month, so... And what has El Paso done historically over the last couple of months? They've, they've pretty much been one of our strongest regions as we've-

Yeah

... gone month to month.

Really the only time... So they've had growth except for the two months of lockdown, the May and June months, which was, uh, March and April sales.

Yep.

They've had some pretty good or at least pretty stable growth since then. We'll see how that plays out two months from now. So moving on.

Oof. Are we-

The next largest, Midland-Odessa, actually fared better than they have, um-

You say that, like, but still talk about how far down they are, right, as a resist-

Oh, you know what? Actually, Midland-Odessa was up s- they were down 17 and a half percent last month.

Yeah.

26% down this month, so it actually did kind of drop back down to those, those previous levels.

And when you go city by city, you're talking about Midland. Midland's down 22%, Odessa's down 29, which last month we were like, "Oh, maybe we're starting to see the bottom," and they actually jumped almost another 10% down from where they were last month, right?

Uh, so Odessa actually last month was 34% down.

Oh, hey, so they improved.

So 29 and a half percent down, so.

Okay.

But yeah, they've-

Stanton, Texas down 56%. Just huge, huge losses continue in that region.

If you were to buy things at a store that was in stock in, like, Midland or Odessa and have them shipped to your store, the Midland-Odessa stores would get the credit for it, correct?

That's correct, yeah, as long as that store had more than three transactions a year inside their store, right?

Yeah, which at-

Yeah

... at, like, a Walmart or Home Depot they would.

Yeah.

So if you're shopping online and your store doesn't have it, see if they can ship it from Midland or, or, or Midland or Odessa to your store.

They could, they could use your help and your tax dollars.

Okay.

So-

Amarillo up 13%.

Amarillo by morning.

Uh, last month-

You're not cutting, you're not cutting out my singing, by the way. You gotta leave that there.

As long as you just keep it to a minimum, we'll be good. I don't sing on this podcast for a reason. I think the same should apply to you.

So-

So last month, uh, Amarillo, that area was basically flat. This month, 13% growth.

And when we look at-

Of course, that's heavily dominated by Amarillo itself-

Yep

... uh, which did see almost 13% growth this month. Borger at 9.4. Uh, Pampa almost 8%. Canyon, w- uh, almost 30%.

Yep.

Yeah, once... Well, once you get-

Once you get past Canyon-

... past Canyon, those numbers are pretty small, so you're gonna have wild swings, but-

But still-

... those top four also pretty good growth.

That is obviously a list for best region candidate right there. It's very strong.

I think it's in the running.

Yeah. Amarillo is very strong. And, uh, our friends at Borger doing really well as well, so...

So Lubbock, Plainview, Leveland up 6%. Last month only up 1.7%, so that's, that's good.

Mm-hmm.

Just like the Amarillo region, this one's heavily dominated by Lubbock, which was up, uh, 6.3%. Plainview up 15. Leveland, uh, took a little bit of a hit, 1.3%.

Wolfforth-

And then Wolfforth almost up 24%.

Yeah, I mean, solid month for that area as well. I mean, I would say Lub-

I mean, really-

... Leveland's pretty close to the bottom

... except for Leveland, except for Leveland, you have to get all the way down to Sundown before you see, uh, the next drop. So yeah, pretty good out there in the Lubbock area.

So Brownsville, Harlingen, Raymondville, wow, 20% growth in the region. And-

Which is good. Last month, they were down six tenth, uh, six tenths of a percent, so a bounce back month.

Brownsville coming in strong, 25% growth. Uh, there's probably about, uh, prob- four or 5% of that is audit related, but still a 20% growth month for them no matter which way you cut it. Harlingen was up 16%. San Benito was up 16. South Padre Island was up 30. Wow. Apparently-

Yeah, I think that this is gonna be definitely in the running for-

Yes

... star of the month.

So South Padre Island, where have we been historically? Let's dig into that one, obviously, 'cause they've been down, right? Yeah. They were down last month 5.1%. They were down the month before 33%. So their summer season, they took a big hit, and then had a big bounce back in when people, I guess, returned to the island on, in September.

Yeah, so they had j- July and August, which would've been May and June, so right after all the shutdowns, they had some pretty good growth, but last month and the month before hit pretty hard, so good to see them back up in the-

Yeah

... plus side.

La Feria is up 18%, so just-

East Fresno's up six, Raymondville up 15 and a half. It's really not till you get to Rio Hondo, but at 25,000 bucks a month, it's a-

Yeah

... it's a pretty small percentage of, of this region, so-

$1,000 swing-

I say-

... was 5%, so I mean, it's just, there's just not much, not much there from a money standpoint.

But I think definitely the Brownsville-Harlingen has to be in the running. I kind of feel... You ever watch the Great British Baking Show?

I do, yeah. My kids love it.

So at the end where they're talking about who's gonna be star baker-

Yes. Yes.

Well, I think he's definitely in the running. That's kind of, kind of how I feel about this. Okay, uh-

'Cause nobody's, nobody's gonna get that though if they don't watch the British Baking Show, which this is the perfect time of year-

It's a really good show

... it's the perfect time of year to watch it 'cause it's going like all holiday stuff right now, right? So...

Uh, so r- actually right now they're, I think, in week eight of the, the new season on Netflix.

Okay.

Um, and it was like the quarantine season, so they all had to, instead of like going home during the week, they all had to stay on, on property. But it's, it's really interesting because on that show, unlike all of the com- like competition shows in America, they, they actually will help each other and kind of root for each other. I don't know if it's just 'cause it's baking or because they're British or what, but it's, it's just a different vibe on that show than what you're normally used to with those kinds of competitions.

So you like the show because they're kind to one another?

I like the show because I've learned a lot of new words for food that the British people use, like pasties.

Okay.

And like, you know, they call cookies biscuits and things like that, so it's just interesting. And they make food that is way different from things that we eat here. So like s- all the savory, uh, baked-

They're good

... goods that they make and-

They tend not to be sweet, right? Like, their baked goods tend to be more savory, not sweet.

I mean, they make plenty of sweet sweets on the show, but they do a lot more savory stuff than we do. Like, basically a chicken pot pie is the closest we get to the- ... kind of stuff that they make.

So-

And that's-

Before we move on, quick question.

Uh-huh.

What is your favorite baked dessert?

My favorite baked dessert?

Yes.

I don't know, probably, probably pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie?

Yeah.

Wow, okay. I, I'd probably go with, uh, I probably have two. Mine's apple pie, like a Dutch apple pie. Like, really intense apples with a lot of like crust and filling for me. Big, thick apple pie. Um, and then also, uh, man, a really good tres leches. I'm a big tres leches guy.

Yeah.

So-

I've, I've seen you- ... um, take, take care of a couple tres leches before.

So-

The, the, for me the, with the pies, I don't... I like apple pies, but I don't like all the excess crust on the apple pie. So that's why I like the pumpkin, 'cause it's just the thin layer at the bottom.

Mm-hmm.

And the majority of what you get is the actual filling. But anyway.

This is totally... So my-

Apropos of nothing.

My family does not eat quiche, but they'll eat apple or they'll... Oh, I'm sorry. They don't, my family doesn't eat quiche, but they will eat egg pie. Wrap that one around your mind there.

Egg pie?

Yeah. It's just, it's a psychological thing with my family, my kids.

So on the, on the British Baking Show recently, one of the most recent episodes, somebody made a, a, a, what do you call it, like an English breakfast quiche.

Right.

So it was a quiche that has scrambled eggs in it. It was super weird. I don't remember if it went over very well. Anyway, let's move on here.

So digressed. Tyler, Jackson-

We got two more... Yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Uh, 7% growth in the Tyler-Jacksonville area. Um, and when we dig into the data even more, uh, Ti- I mean, really positive growth all the way around that, that region. Uh, 6.7%, uh, for Tyler, 9% for Jacksonville, 18% for Lindale, uh, 18% for Whitehouse, and 20% for Rusk, and 14% for Bullard. Don't get a negative number till we get to Troup, Texas, which was, uh, 32% down. Uh, they had a loss of 20,000, uh, on a net payment of, uh, 43,000. So, you know, really just pretty, pretty healthy in that region besides Troup. Uh, but the larger cities for sure, s- specifically Tyler, had a really good month.

Yeah. So, uh, Victoria-Port Lavaca as a region up 1.23%. That's, uh, it's gonna be mostly Victoria at, with 2.4% growth. Um, actually their audit adjustment accounts for almost all of it.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, so without that, you've got Port Lavaca down 8.5%, which is mostly audit related. Goliad down 1%, and then, uh, Seadrift and Port Comfort, those are the two that have growth at 26 and 6% respectively. And then drop down to your favorite. You wanna go ahead and talk about Kerrville-Fredericksburg, Austin?

I'm not gonna s- I'm not gonna say it this month. I'm not gonna talk about all the Airbnbs in Fredericksburg, but the numbers speak for themselves. I mean, this region has been one of the healthiest regions in the state. It's up by 23%, almost 20, you know, it's 23 and a half percent. And when you dig into the numbers, I mean, just Kerrville is up 24%, Fredericksburg is up 21%. And this is on top of an already probably huge September that they had the year previous. And Ingram, that's in that area as well, smaller numbers, but Ingram was up 13%. So when you dig into Fredericksburg's numbers, they had a down month in September of 4%. They had like four straight down months from March through June, and then they've been fairly positive since. I mean, in, in their positivity numbers, I mean, a 21% growth number is enormous in November compared to, they had growth last year of almost 3%. So not coming off a negative time period in the same period last year, continuing to see growth, and everywhere you read, it's like the staycation capital of Texas. So looks like they've done a very good job of weathering the storm, uh, in Fredericksburg-Kerrville area. You wanna jump into some MSAs?

Yeah. We've exhausted the CSAs, so let's jump down to the MSAs because unfortunately, that does leave us with some pretty large population areas that, uh, we haven't gotten to yet. So Austin-Round Rock, 7% growth, uh, which is pretty solid. What were they last month?

DFW beat the Austin area, winner by just like a little bit.

Yeah, eight tenths of a percent.

Eight tenths of a percent.

All right. So let's jump into Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown. Austin-

Oh, they're down

... basically flat. Yeah, three quarters of a percent, but, uh, about half of... Actually-

Yeah, you take out the audit adjus- you take out the audit adjustment for Austin, and they're down-

It's declined

... a- about a percent. I mean, clearly-

Yeah, now we've seen them down, except for August, we've seen Austin downSince May.

Yep.

So kind of continuing that trend. Round Rock down 10 and a half percent.

San Marcos up 37%

... 37%.

You know, digging-

That's a big number for-

Yep

... for Round Rock because they have actually-- They've been up and down, but it's been right around that baseline of zero-

Yep

... for the past several months. Um, you have to go back to March, which is before all this stuff started, to have a, a month that is as rough as this month. But 10 and a half percent down for Round Rock. What'd you say about San Marcos? 37%.

37% in San Marcos.

Yeah, just l- looking at those numbers is just outrageous. 20... Okay, so this is since May.

Yep.

23, 51, 63, 53, 50, 21, and 37% growth. Wow.

Just incredible growth. I mean, really un- unreal what's happening in San Marcos. Georgetown, I mean, also seeing huge growth, 32% in Georgetown. Let's not forget about our friends there. Same thing, since July.

Yeah.

11%, 22 in August, 10 in September, 17 in October, and then 32 now. Once you get past Round Rock being negative, which is second on our list in size, you do not have a negative city until you get down to, like, Valente.

Valente.

I mean-

Which makes sense given, given the, you know, travel issues over the past few months. But yeah, I mean, you've got-

This would be a star baker area except for Austin. Austin weighed them down.

I think, yeah, Austin and Round Rock definitely have... But I mean, you've got some big numbers here. So Georgetown's 33, Cedar Park's at 10, Pflugerville's at 22, which is, they've been gangbusters. Kyle's at 20, and I feel like Kyle... No, they've, wow.

Yeah. Yeah, they've had some-

Yeah

... they've had some rough go.

They've had some good numbers.

Good numbers, and-

Let's see. Yeah, saw, uh-

13, uh, 13 in May, seven in June, 14, 24, four, 11, and then 19. So yeah, Kyle's, Kyle's been plenty healthy.

But Bee Cave's up almost 12. Leander's up almost 50. Represent.

Your hometown.

Uh, Buda 25. Bastrop. So I would say definitely i- if not for Austin being such a big part of this and still struggling, and then Round Rock as well, that, uh, the Austin area would otherwise be in contention for star of the month.

But to be the star baker of the month-

Hey, I-

... you-

Are we gonna, are we gonna start calling it the star baker?

At least for this podcast. Uh, to be the star baker, it's a te- it's a team thing, and-

It's a team effort

... the team here just didn't perform as a, as holistically as they needed to. So sorry, guys. You don't get my vote. It's a no for me.

It's a no for you. You're not gonna go to h- to Hollywood.

Yes. So our next region we need to look at is Killeen-Temple. So Killeen-Temple area is up 17.4%. That's strong. That's a, that's a good, strong-

Number

... number. Yeah, so wow, Killeen.

19% for Killeen, almost 15 for Temple, 20 for Harker Heights, 15 for Belton, 20 for Copperas Cove. This is pretty good numbers, too.

Yeah.

Consistently all the way up till Troy at 11 and a half percent down.

It's only, 'cause Troy's only got one.

But that's only on... Yeah, it's only on s- uh, $52,000 in revenue. So strong showing there in Central Texas. Uh, Waco, 6.7% growth-

Strong

... compared to last, uh, last year. And leading the way with about 4.3% growth is Waco. Did have a sizable audit adjustment that probably takes up about, uh, half of that. Well, not quite, but maybe 35, 40% of that growth number.

But Waco is starting to show... So this is the second month of positive growth in a row. They, they did have kind of a month in the middle there. Uh, so they started going negative in April of last year. They had one positive month in August, and then they've now had two in a row, October, November. Uh, October was, was minimal, but it was positive, so it seems like we're kind of moving back towards the positive, uh, with, with Waco. And I don't really worry about Waco post-COVID. They've got a lot of great things going on in Waco, so I think they're gonna, they're gonna have a pretty big bounce once people get back to traveling.

They do have some, some good stuff going on there.

As Chad is wearing a Baylor Bear shirt on our podcast today, just to point that out for everybody.

I am.

It's actually a pretty cool Baylor Bear shirt. As an Aggie, I can say that.

Kind of looks like a vintage.

It's got that vintage bear on it. Eh, it's, it's not too bad. But I came representing Zactax and the brand today, even though we don't show video on the podcast. So-

Yeah, I, I couldn't find my shirt, so I put this one on. It was green, so I figured it would kind of match. Uh, so anyway, let's see. Robinson up 21%, McGregor up 64%, Lacy Lakeview up 16%. Really, it's not until Lorena at 30% drop on $51,000 in revenue that, uh, you, you get some declines there. So overall, pretty solid. That Central Texas corridor, or 35 corridor, outside of Austin and Round Rock, looking pretty good.

Overall, I, I liked the dish. I thought it was very good, but I'm not sure they're my star baker.

It was a little bit stodgy.

Uh, so-

Okay. Uh, we can go to Abilene, and then, uh, we'll jump over to your-

Homeland

... favorite Fightin' Aggie whatever.

Fightin' Texas Aggie class of 2006. Whoop. If that makes it on the podcast, I'll be so excited. Which by the way, can we preview just a little bit that your, that your brother Cody is gonna be on a future podcast, which means you're gonna have to listen to he and I talk all Aggie all the time?

Yeah, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk to him, and then I'm gonna let y'all just do whatever you want. And we'll do one of those disclaimers, like, after this part in the episode, you can ignore it because it's just- ... mindless Aggie drivel.

Thanks, Chad. Really, really appreciate that. So, uh, going to Abilene.

It's all right.

Abilene had a great, healthy month, up 6.58%. Little bit of audit adjustment, but not much. Uh, Klyde America, as people in Klyde like to call it, goes up 16.74%. I say that every month, right? Klyde America.

Yes, you do.

Yeah, there you go.Merkel, Texas. I gotta, I gotta have a shout-out for Merkel. Merkel was down nine percent, but, uh, that is the home of Sterling Narron, Hudson Oaks' new city manager.

There you go.

There you go.

Uh, let's see, College Station and Bryan. How'd they end up?

The homeland was down.

Oh, down four percent.

Yep. College Station flat, though. That's exciting news. Uh-

College Station flat with... but with an audit adjustment of 130,000, so that number-

Yeah

... would've been, would've been worse.

So-

Uh, Bryan down six percent, Caldwell down 30%.

This is all-

Yeah. I mean, BCS took a hit this month.

They did, for sure, but, I mean, how much of the student population's back on campus? No football, no college football, or very little college football. I think it's, like, 20% in the stadium right now. You know, that's all gonna have impacts, for sure. So think we're, we're seeing it. Hearne was up just a little bit at 3.79%, but other than that, the region performed fairly poorly.

All right, some quick hitters. Tyler area up 7.4%. The city of Tyler itself, uh, 6.8. Lindale up 18, Whitehouse 18, and Bullard up 14.

We talked about them already.

Did you?

Yeah, they were in the MSAs or the CSAs.

Oh. Oh, well, double-dipping.

Our next one would be, um-

You don't double-dip. You take the dip-

Don't... Yeah

... and you eat it. And you get another chip.

Then you get another chip. Uh, Laredo, Texas, uh, area was up 15%. When you dig into the Laredo area, it's just Laredo-

No

... and Rio, uh, Bravo.

L- no. Laredo was up 7%.

I said Laredo area.

That was Sherman, Denison.

Oh.

Sherman, Denison up 15%. And then Wichita Falls up eight. We haven't gotten to San Angelo, so let's jump to San Angelo. Uh, 4.5% for the city of San Angelo. That's gonna be the bulk of that at that region.

So two months in a row of positive growth.

Any others that stand out to you here? Nacogdoches up 23%.

Huntsville was up 6.6%.

Oh, real quick, let's hit those other two areas out in, uh, West Texas. Pecos down 50%, Andrews down 30%, so those are the regions. Let's look at the actual-

Pecos down

... cities themselves.

Yeah, Pecos was down 50.1%.

Pecos was down 50.

Yeah.

And Andrews proper down 30%, so yeah, man, those, those West Texas towns are just having a rough go of it right now.

What's your take on this month?

What is my take on this month? Oh, man. I'm glad to see a bounce-back. Uh, some of these numbers are really large, though. I would not expect this to continue at this rate next month. Hopefully, though, it's a sign that maybe this holiday season won't be quite so s- you know, subpar. Um, last two months, we've seen declines, and, you know, one month isn't a trend. Two months isn't necessarily a trend, as we can tell, because this month we had a big bounce-back, but it's at least, it's at least good to see a big month after the last two.

Mm-hmm.

You know, to see kind of, some kind of elasticity and, and see a bounce-back kinda give you hope that it's, that we were not on a somewhat permanent ne- downward trend. So it's nice to see growth again. We s- there's a lot of good growth across the state. Um, and even the bigger cities where they had declines, they were smaller than what we have seen in previous months, so... Like, Dallas would've been positive if not for the, uh, audit adjustment, and they would've been very positive, seven or eight percent, which is, which is good for Dallas. Houston saw growth. That's the first time in, in a while.

Mm-hmm.

So it's nice to see those big cities also kind of rebounding. What do you think?

Yeah, I think we, we saw better months, uh, specifically in the urban cities than we have. You know, I, I don't think it's a trend. There are some numbers here that concern me. Some of these big bounces really are concerning to me 'cause it just doesn't look like standard stable growth. It, it looks like there's ebbs and, and flows or really swings in consumer behavior that is taking place, and that makes me nervous. It's just kinda like market volatility always makes me nervous. Overall, though, I mean, I, I'm more positive on this month. I think, you know, obviously we, we saw some, some good news out of the metropolitan areas. Uh, still real worried about West Texas. Uh, still worried about, you know, drilling locations and, and the oil industry. That's having an impact, there's no doubt. We're gonna get towards the end of the year, and we'll see what the impact is there. So, uh, I wouldn't open the checkbook yet, but also, just like we said in the beginning, I wouldn't have closed the checkbook to begin with in most of the communities that we're talking about, right? So, now, West Texas is a totally different story. But where we're at now, I, I think, you know, hopefully we start to see a trend. I mean, that's, that's what I would like to see.

Yeah. Just take these gains, bank them, and then we'll just wait, wait for next month.

I, I-

Kinda how it goes in South Texas sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, I... You know, my, my projection, if I was to make one, is that we're gonna start to see, we're gonna see a little bit more market volatility. We may be positive at the end of the day. It's like a good blackjack player, right? You're gonna have good nights and bad nights, and, uh, you just kinda have to take it as a whole and on the average, and I think that's what we're gonna see on sales tax over the next couple of months as we move through the holidays. Nobody really knows what Thanksgiving's gonna look like. Nobody really knows what Christmas is gonna look like. Um, but the good news is that Fauci says by April we should be in better shape. So we'll see if that's the case, and hopefully we'll get there. But your Star Baker award, who you going with?

I'm gonna put my vote in for Brownsville, Harlingen, Ravenville. There's some big numbers here. They've had a rough go of it, especially South Padre Island, to see 33%... 30% growth, uh, with some of those down months. But you also saw in that area just solid gains. I mean, the first decline is Rio Hondo at 25,000. You know, $1,400 decline on 25,000 of revenue. Everything else is almost double digits, so that's got my vote.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on there, on this one. I believe there's a sleeper, and I believe the sleeper is Killeen, Temple. I think Killeen, Temple came in, showed some strong numbers. I think the region has done strong. I think they got a good little regional economy there that's worked out really well for them, and so they would be my Star Baker. But if we're looking at pure numbers, Brownsville, Harlingen at 20.85% and just the overall performance probably is the winner.

Yeah, so Brownsville, Harlingen is 1.4 million in growth at 21% versus 1.1 million in growth at 17%, so I think, I think the Killeen, Temple area made a good go of it, but I'm gonna stick with my, with my pick.

So congratulations to Brownsville, Harlingen for your Star Baker award for this month.

Also, congratulations to Brittany Huff on her s- the, the first ever Sales Tax Game Day winner. Um, as we move forward, you know, keep doing this. We're gonna open up some, uh, additional games, not just the guess the whole statewide city sales collections, but, uh, we'll have a lot of different games for y'all to play and just kind of work on your projection skills. And if you win, sometimes you'll have the opportunity to get some swag or something else, or at least, at least the pride of having competed and won. There are no participation trophies on Sales Tax Game Day, but we just, we do wanna have fun with it.

We don't believe in the fun, fair, positive side of sports. Is that what you're telling me? You're either first or you're last, Ricky Bobby.

First or you're last.

There we go. Well, hey, guys. Thanks for joining us on Sales Tax Game Day for the month of November 2020. Uh, we appreciate your time and spending it with us. And if you got any questions, as always, you can reach out to me or Chad through our social media channels or just directly through chad or patrick@zactax.com. So, uh, we'll see you later on our next podcast. Bye, Chad.

See ya.