What's up, Zach family? Welcome to Game Day. We are recording this a day late. Uh-

It's the post-game day.

It's post-game day. But yes, we're recording one day late. Chad got his COVID shot, his second shot, two days ago, and yesterday he was a little, a little tired. He was a little worn out. Tell us about it, Chad.

Well, I was, yeah. So, uh, we, we got our second Moderna shot. My wife's pregnant, so she was able to get on, you know, the, the list, uh, early. And, um, so I got my second shot on Tuesday. Really it wasn't that bad, but I had a really hard time sleeping on Tuesday night, so yesterday I was just exhausted. And I had some chills, I had a little bit of aches, but it, it wasn't terrible. But mostly just exhausted all day yesterday. So I'm, I'm summoning the energy today to, uh, to get this done. So bear with me. I may, uh, I may defer to you a little bit and kind of provide some color today, but-

You mean Patrick-

We're making it happen

... Patrick talking more than normal? That's a lot of talking right there.

Isn't that always a shock?

That's a shock. So, um, so Chad's reaction to his second COVID shot was worse than my actual COVID, I think. So-

It wasn't bad, I just had a hard time sleeping.

Ah.

Like I kept, I c- I just kept waking up, like, shivering. So I mean, when you wake up every half hour, yeah, it's hard to get, like, into your REM cycle. So you d- you don't get a lot of restorative sleep.

I got that. So l- let's talk overall numbers. So statewide, where were we, Chad? Overall numbers.

Okay, so we're talking February 2021. Those are sales occurring in December of 2020. 1.69% growth.

That's o- I mean, pretty good.

That's not bad.

I mean, Christmas sales are always usually the highest of the year, right? December's usually the highest sales month of the year, and we see that in February. Uh, so yeah, I mean that's, that's pretty good growth, but when we dig into it and we actually look at specific areas, I was a bit surprised at, at some of the performance that we saw across the board. Just throwing that out there. Um-

Yeah. Well, let... Give us a high level.

Yeah, so I mean h- high level looking at, uh, you know, different regions, uh, the DFW region was 2.79% up. Uh, the Houston area and the Woodlands area were, were down slightly, just 1%. San Antonio, New Braunfels was up 2.4. Uh, kinda deep South Texas-

Can I just say something?

Yeah.

This... Just for our friends in New Braunfels, there's only one S in New Braunfels.

New Braun-s-fels.

New Braunfels.

Yeah, you, you're right, I put an S in it.

Yeah. Yeah. I just figured I'd, you know-

New Braunfels

... just stand out for our, our friends down there in Central Texas.

Yeah. I, I've had, I... You know, I have great childhood memories in New Braunfels. I don't think that was a different town. Thank you for that. McAllen, Edinburg-

Did y- did y'all go down there for Schlitterbahn?

Oh yeah, as a kid. And we would-

Would you, uh, go tubing?

Go tubing. And we would stay in the cabins, like, right there on the Comal, right? And then you go to Schlitterbahn. If, if you're not Texan, if you didn't grow up in Texas, maybe that's not the trip you took.

If you didn't grow up in Texas, y- probably the only reason that you know Schlitterbahn is because of that terrible tragedy that happened-

Yeah

... a few years ago.

It's kind of a s- it's kind of a stain, for sure, on the name. But if you grew up in Texas, like, that's a, that's a deep in the heart of Texas, like, kid vacation.

Yeah, the world's first uphill r- uh, water coasters.

Yeah. And you get to take your own ice chest inside. Like, that was-

Yeah

... a Schlitterbahn thing, right? So, uh, McAllen, Edinburg was up 8.9%. Midland-Odessa-

Hey

... positive numbers. Positive numbers. Uh, we have-

We have a, like, an applause-

Yes

... uh, track we can play here.

Seriously though, can we, can we double check on those numbers? Can you make sure that's right?

Yeah, let's, let's jump there.

Yeah, let's, let's just jump right into Midland-Odessa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay, so Midland's still down 4.3%, but Odessa breaking the streak of, like, two years of decline. Odessa up-

I, I feel-

... 9.9%.

I feel like we should send our friends in Odessa an email to congratulate them on their first positive.

9.9%. That is amazing. That is-

Yeah

... literally... Let's see. Hold on here.

When in the world of COVID-

They have not had, they have not had a month of growth since September 2019.

Guys, I don't even need to wait until the end of this.

That's our, that's our f- our shining star. What is it-

Our-

... called, Star Baker?

Our Star... Whatever we call it. Shining Star was the old-

Our Star Baker

... award we used to give. Yeah. Our w- what do we call it? Our Star Baker. That's right.

Yeah, we have co-opted the, uh, the British baking show.

Yeah, that's correct. So our Star Baker, five minutes into the podcast, is Odessa, Texas. I mean, you c- there's-

That's-

... there's nobody that compares to this.

No, that's amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, you look, just, just for context, the past let's say seven or eight months, down 31, down 33, down 29, down 34, down 35. So to see a 9% growth, that's awesome.

Now let me, let me stick a little bit of a, a negativity on it. 1.2 million of their growth was an audit.

Oh, no. Was it really?

Do we need to take away the Star Baker award?

Oh, we might.

I'm sorry, Odessa. We were so happy for you until I-

Can we hit the pause button here?

... looked in.

I'm gonna do some quick math here.

Yeah. We gotta, we gotta do the math to see if they're still gonna remain positive after this.

Oh, they won't, for sure.

Yeah. They're, they're gonna be negative. In the COVID world we would call this a false positive. Dad joke of the day. Chad can't even handle it. Y'all should see his face.

Yeah. I, I will say they're still down only 11%, which is, which is good. I, I think we are gonna have to give it to them anyway.

Yeah.

Despite the audit. You know, we don't know what the audit includes. Maybe it was some taxpayers that should've been paying them over these past 12 months.But either way, just to have a positive number-

That feel-

... even if there's a caveat, I think that's, I think that's something to look, look-

That feels a-

... happy at

... that feels a little fun fair positive everybody gets a trophy, but we'll let it happen this one time.

Yeah. We'll let it slide.

We'll let it slide. So, uh, continuing, uh, looking at just regions, uh, Corpus Christi area was down 1.16. El Paso, Las Cruces, ah, .4. Amarillo, Pampa, ah, Borger up 2.4%. Lubbock, Plainview, uh, Levelland up .75, so pretty flat. Brownsville, Harlingen, Raymondville still strong, 6.17 in that region. Uh, the Tyler, Jacksonville area up 3.75. Uh, Victoria, Port Lavaca down 2.6%. And Kerrville, Fredericksburg, uh, up 10.78%. I haven't said it yet. I'll say it when we get to it.

You could see my smile there. That's-

You're smiling. Yeah, you're waiting for it. So let's, let's just jump into DFW. Uh, it's first on our list. It's the easiest one to jump into. That way we can go in order so we don't forget somebody like we did last month or the month before last. 'Cause last month, as you recall, we recorded this podcast three times.

Yes.

And we had-

And no audio.

No audio. So, uh, we have officially changed, uh, the way we record our broadcast now. So it just is what it is. So Dallas, uh, Dallas was up 1.9%, Arlington 3%.

Yeah.

Frisco-

Dallas, Dallas up 1.9, but they have a two-and-a-half million dollar audit adjustment.

Yeah, so they're down when you make an adjustment, when you adjust for the audit adjustment. Arlington, three, uh, Frisco, 7.8. That's, that's really strong growth for Frisco 'cause they, they have been a little flatter. Uh, McKinney is 8.42. Plano was down 1.2. Irving was down 2.8. Grand Prairie up, uh, six and a half. Mesquite... Oh, I missed Fort Worth, sorry. Fort Worth is basically flat. They were down half a percent. Um, Mesquite was down 2%. Allen was up 5%. Lewisville, 11%. Coppell up 18%. Wow, big number rise there. Richardson down 19%. Grapevine down 15%. Denton down almost 2%. The Colony coming in strong with Nebraska Furniture Mart at 24 and a half percent. Um, Southlake down three. Uh, Carrollton down eight. Mansfield up three. Garland down one, and Rockwall down one. We can continue, but that kinda gets us through the bulk of it. All right, so jumping into another region. Let's go look at... What's next, Chad? Houston-

Yeah, Houston, Woodlands

... Woodlands. So H down.

Yeah, down three and a quarter percent.

My Astros kept Michael Brantley, by the way. I don't know y- I know you don't care about my trashros, but that's my two down.

I don't.

So a year ago, pretty much this same time period almost a year ago, I was, uh, I was at spring training when COVID hit and spring training got canceled. Sad. So-

That's true

... maybe-

I think there's gonna be a, a newsletter that mentions that pretty soon.

Oh, there is actually gonna be a newsletter. Yeah, it's supposed to... once we hit the send button on that one. Uh-

So, uh, yeah, Houston down three and three quarters, but with, with an audit adjustment of plus one million, so they'd actually be quite a bit lower.

Yeah. Yeah. So-

But Sugar Land and Conroe both up, which is, uh, which is good for them.

Which is new, right? Sugar Land has actually seen some declines. Am I, am I wrong?

Uh, so, so-

Yeah, Sugar Land has not seen-

Yeah, I think it's Sugar Land

... a positive number since April of 2020.

Yeah. So that's great.

Yeah. It's good news for Sugar Land.

Is that, is that an audit though? No.

No. That's, that's pretty-

I mean, it's-

Uh-

They were still positive despite the audit adjustments.

Yeah. Correct.

Same for Conroe. Uh, Pearland up 3.3. Pasadena down 10 and a half. League City, uh, down two and a half. Rosenberg up 40, almost 42%. Baytown up 26%.

Wow. Yeah, Texas-

Galveston, 7.2% down.

Yeah. Tomball, you know, half a percent down. My hometown of Katy, Texas up two and a half percent. Humble, uh, just basically flat. Dickinson, wow, 50% up. I don't know. Can we give the Star Baker Award? I mean, that's a-

That's a big number

... that's a big number right there. So Dickinson coming in there with some strong numbers. So I mean, the Houston market, you know, overall not, not terrible. They, they actually did show a negative number as a region, uh, of just-

Yes

... just a little over 1%, so not too bad. So San Antonio, New Braunfels, Paracel.

Let's see.

You probably call it Parsel, but it's Paracel.

Parsel.

Parsol.

Yeah.

I didn't even pronounce it right when I was trying to tell you how to pronounce it. So, uh, San Antonio, uh, had an audit adjustment. That's the only reason they're positive. The audit adjustment was 378,000. They were actually up only 200,000. So, uh, when you take that into account, they would've been down. Uh, New Braunfels, uh, looking at-

New Braunfels.

Yes. I can't, I can't help it. New Braunfels.

It's just muscle memory at this point.

You know what's funny is, is, is they actually listen to our podcast, and so I'm probably gonna get an email on that one.

Oh, wow.

So, uh, we're up 7.57% there. Uh, Schertz is up 15.7. Live Oak, Texas down 5%. Selma up 17. Boerne up 18.9. Seguin down three. Uh, that's surprising, right? Seguin's been fairly strong and positive. Oh, no, they've had three down months in a row or, or three down months in the last-

They've been up and down

... six.

Yeah.

Yeah, they've been up and down. Uh, Helotes up 34%. Windcrest, 15. Universal City up five. Converse up 17. Wow. Cibolo, nine and a half. Pleasanton was down 13.7.And then we get into Floresville was up three and a half. Uh, Bulverde was up 15. Alamo Heights was up, another strong one, 5.75%. And then Parisol is up... is down. Oof. Ooh, should never have said their name incorrectly. Down 19.91%.

I'm gonna jump over to McAllen-Edinburg, um, or Edinburg. And they've actually got some, some pretty positive numbers until you get down to Mercedes. But McAllen, despite an audit adjustment, would still be positive, but with it, about 1.4%. Edinburg up 12, Pharr 14 and a half, Mission up 66%. That's a big number.

That's a huge number.

Uh, so that's 66% on, uh, at 1.9 million.

Wow.

Uh, Weslaco up 6%, then Mercedes down 19%. That's your first city in that CSA that's, uh, that's showing decline. Alamo up 12, Donna up 18.7. Rio Grande City, uh, down 1.1. It'd basically be flat if not for an audit adjustment. San Juan about flat. Hidalgo 16 and a half. Palmhurst up 16. And Elsa, let it go, Elsa, up 13... 33.84%.

It's cold outside, Elsa. It's cold.

It is super cold.

Super cold. So jumping over to Midland-Odessa. I know we talked a little bit already about our friends in Odessa, but Midland was down 4.32%. Can, can we actually call that a little bit of a win? Like, just 4% down for Midland. I mean, we have been averaging-

So, so Midland and Odessa both had pretty big audit adjustments, though.

They did. Yeah, they both had audit adjustments. Uh, but, you know, they-

I, I understand. If you wanna, if you wanna feel uncomfortable giving the Midland-Odessa area the star baker because of those audit adjustments, I can, I can live with that.

Mm-hmm.

But I, I do think that just given how ugly it's been for the past 12 to 18 months, that any sign of hope is kind of worth, uh, celebrating.

So if we compare this to another cooking show, Chopped, one of my, one of my favorites, this is like keeping the chef who forgets one of the main ingredients.

So, you know, we just watched a, uh, the second season of a show on Netflix called Blown Away.

Mm-hmm.

It's like, like a, it's a glass or... not glass, it's a, a glass blowing competition. Okay, so whatever it is what it is. It's a, it's a half-hour show, so it's kinda quick. Uh, and they only have one round.

Okay.

But, um, there was a guy in the second season and they kept him, I don't wanna spoil it, but they kept him for I think two extra episodes.

Ho- hold on, Chad. Go ahead and spoil it, 'cause I don't think any of our listeners are gonna watch this show .

They may not. They kept him for two episodes deeper than they probably should have-

Oh

... because one of them, one of the pieces he did was in memory to his father who had passed away, like, the day that he got there to the competition. And then the next week he did a, a piece that was dedicated to his mother who had died, you know, several years ago, so-

This cracks me up

... like, he just pulled on that heart string to keep himself in the competition.

I, I understand, but this cracks me up about you because you, this, these are the areas where Chad is cold, right? This is, this is the area where, like, I, I love the frustration that comes from Chad when people do things like this or, you know, you get into the Starbucks line and it, it just always happens to Chad. Like, I get in the Starbucks line and somebody ahead of me pays for my order and, you know, I ended up buying like four drinks and I end up only having to buy like, like one drink behind me, right?

For the person behind you? Yeah.

Yeah. When Chad gets in that scenario, and it's, it is literally karma of Chad's life, he gets like the full on office order, like the 10 or 20 Starbucks drinks, and he ends up having like a 50 or $60 bill. It's a totally different animal.

Yeah, I've actually said, "No, I, I do not wanna participate."

I have never said no. I, I have-

Well, if I'm, if I'm buying a $2.50 coffee and the person behind me has a $20 order, like, I'm sorry. I'll, I'll buy one of the drinks, but I'm not gonna pay 10 times as much because the person in front of me decided to do it. And the, the people at Starbucks are always really, really excited to keep this train going.

Uh-huh.

But the thing about paying it forward is, like, if everyone is just paying for someone else's meal or order, like, w- I don't understand how that's really being nice and generous.

Have you watched The Wizard of Oz?

What are you saying, like I don't have... like I'm a Tin Man with no heart?

No, Tin Man needed oil, right?

Oh, yeah. I'm the, I'm the lion.

It was the lion, it was the lion that needed the heart, yeah. First off, time out. Time out.

I, I totally blew that reference, yeah.

You... it, it never happens. Like, you never blow a movie reference. Like, you always have the movie reference down. But apparently if you flow all the way back to, like, the 19... that was the '60s, '70s? When was that movie made?

Oh, no, it was in the '30s.

'30s? Okay. If we go all the way back to the '30s, that's, uh, that's fun to hear Chad blow one. So-

Yeah, 1939.

So Midland was up for 4.3. Odessa, or sorry, was down 4.3. Odessa was up 9.9. Stanton was up 12 and a half. And Goldsmith, uh, which doesn't have a ton of revenue, was up 21%.

I'm really interested for the feedback on this episode, 'cause we've already... we're not even, like, halfway through this list and we've had some pretty substantial tangents.

That's correct, yes.

All right, let's hit Corpus Christi, uh, area. Corpus Christi down 4.6%. That's with an $80,000 audit adjustment, so they would actually have been down probably closer to 5%. Portland up 7.2, Kingsville 8.8. Uh, Alice basically flat. And Ingleside about .8% growth. Rockport 15.7. Aransas Pass 6% up. Port Aransas 23 and a half percent up.

Yeah, so I mean, you know, outside of Corpus Christi, which, you know, obviously has the bulk of the revenue in that area-

Yeah, it's the big, the big dog

... yeah, every- everybody did pretty well in that region outside of Corpus. So El Paso, Las Cruces, Texas, New Mexico, which we don't like the New Mexico side-But El Paso was down a little over half a percent. Uh, they also had a positive audit adjustment, so if you take that into account it would, it would be over a percent, probably 1.25. Horizon City, uh, was up 17. Uh, Socorro, uh, the city not the movie, was up 22%. Anthony was up 43-

You talking about Sicario?

Sicario, yeah.

There you go.

There's my-

I redeem myself on the movie references

... terrible movie re- yourself on the movie references. Check that out. So, uh, and then Anthony was up 33.32%.

All right, jump over to Amarillo/Pampa/Borger. Uh, as a region, what were we, up 2.5%? Amarillo proper up 2.7. Uh, Pampa and Borger both down about 6%.

Pa- Pampa?

Pampa.

Pampa.

Amarillo up 2.7%. Pampa and Borger both down about 6%. Uh-

Guys, can we make Chad-

I'm cut, I'm c-

... get his COVID shot before every podcast we do? Because I've never in my life seen him make so many mistakes that are funny to me.

Yeah, though what's gonna be funny though is I'm, I'm gonna edit that one out.

No, no, no, you gotta leave that one. You gotta leave that one. So, I'm sorry.

Uh, Canyon up 13. Canyon up 13.4. Double Oak 15.8. Panhandle 18.11, and, uh, Fritch up 3.4. The problem is right now I have so much clothes on, so many clothes on that I am just, like, drenched in sweat right now, and it's just like, I, I got a lot going on here. I'm trying, I'm trying to, to manage.

I'm gonna move on to Lubbock/Plainview/Leveland area, and jump into that because we, I think we've probably had enough of learning that Chad has five sweaters. Lubbock was, uh, pretty much flat. They were, they were down .11%. They did have an audit adjustment, so if you take that into account, uh, they would've been down a little further.

Yeah.

Plainview was up 11 and a half. Leveland was up one and a half. Wolfforth 1.96 up. Slaton was up 7, uh, point 1. Sundown was up 17. Uh, Idalou was up 15. Uh, Abernathy was down 16. So, um, you know, a decent-

So-

... month in that region if you take-

Uh-

... Lubbock into account

... so funny thing about, uh, actually I, I shoulda said this on the, the Amarillo area. Uh, I saw this news clip from a, uh, DFW news station from like the early '90s this morning, and it was... Like right now obviously we're in some kind of s- winter storm for the next just like month it seems. Um, but way back then they had a huge storm up in the Panhandle and they sent a reporter, 'cause as, I don't know why they do this, but they send these poor people up to go stand out in the freezing cold weather, and it was like negative, I don't know, 20 degrees. It was so cold that they could only go outside for the broadcast. Uh, so she had been outside for like five minutes and when they, when they jumped to her, like her mouth was so basically frozen that it sounded like she had probably had, like she just got out of the pub. It was really funny. I'm gonna cut this too.

I'm just trying to figure out, like, where that story came from. Um-

Uh, well I was thinking, uh, uh, well if you wanna... Okay, so this is a deep dive into my-

We're gonna have to record a podcast right after this one- ... and just record like a random podcast.

Th- uh, this is a deep dive into-

'Cause I have so many things to talk about, including your office.

Okay, so here's my thought process.

Okay.

Do you ever do this, where you, you end up somewhere that's like seven steps away from where you started, and then you try to trace your step back to figure out how you got there? So we're in the Amarillo area.

Uh-huh.

And one thing that I always wait for you to say is, is Clyde America, and so when we got to Lubbock I was thinking, "Oh, we didn't go down there." But then I realized that they're not in the Amarillo area.

Nope.

And then I started thinking about Hindley, which is where this, this, uh, particular video took place, and then I realized that we were already off of the Amarillo area, but I decided to go ahead and go for it anyway.

In- interesting. Interesting way that we got there.

Yeah.

All right, so moving on to Brownsville, Harlingen, and Raymondville. Um, Brownsville was down 2.71%. Is that... That's one of the first months we've seen a negative number in Brownsville, right? No, they've been up and down.

Yeah, last month they were up 14%.

Yeah. Harlingen was up 15, San Benito was up 13. South Padre Island up 13 and a half. Uh, Los Fresnos was up 39.61. Raymondville was up, uh, 35%. Wow. And Port Isabel was up 3.96%.

You wanna hit your, uh, your favorite Airbnb destination-

Let's do it

... before we jump over to the MSAs?

Sure. You want me to hit Kerrville, Fredericksburg? Also has been our star baker a couple of times I think, right, this area?

I think once.

Once, yeah. Kerrville was up 10%, Fredericksburg was up 11.8%, and Ingram was up 14 and a half. Fredericksburg continues to show ravishing numbers as they grow. Since July, they have been positive every month except for one month, which was September. Uh, but the last two months they've been up 15% and 11% respectively.

Thank you for that. I'm gonna jump over to the CSA, or MSAs now, uh, because, uh, one problem with this classification grouping is that we always miss the Austin/Round Rock area, uh, and also a couple of other places. So Austin/Round Rock up 2.3% for December. Uh, Austin proper down four and .6%. Round Rock down 8%. I feel like that's... Yeah.

Yeah.

Round Rock has had some, some rough goes. They were up last month about 4%, uh, but they have had some declines in the past six months. San Marcos, uh, as one would expect, up 17%. Georgetown 21% growth. Cedar Park up 10%, Pflugerville 16, Bee Cave up 7, Kyle up 13, and Leander, home of the Leander Lions-Uh, 26.8% growth

I thought you were gonna say your hometown.

That is my hometown.

Yeah. S- so I was trying to point out for you.

Sunset Valley down 1%.

Wow, that's unusual.

I mean, it's pretty good, all things considered, um, because so much of their sales tax is physical, in-store shopping.

Yeah, true.

But, yeah.

The Killeen-Temple area, jump in there real quick. Killeen was up 10%, Temple was down 3. Uh, Harker Heights was up 10, Belton was up 20. Uh, she doesn't listen to our podcast, but Belton is the home of, uh, Shelly, our old city secretary. I throw this in here just to see if she ever listens to our podcast, but she-

I'm sure she, she doesn't

She doesn't, no. She, she's the one who makes fun of us all the time. So, uh-

She got enough of us over, like, five or six years.

That's correct, yeah. Copperas Cove was up ni- uh, 9.5%. Gatesville, uh, is up 3%, so solid. And Lampasas was up 17, Nolanville was up 51. So good, good growth in those areas.

Uh, I'm gonna jump into your neck of the woods, Bryan-College Station. Uh, as a whole, down 1.2%. College Station up 3.8, Bryan down 6.2. Uh, Caldwell up 24. Hearne ... I'm sorry, Caldwell down 24, Hearne down 8. Uh, Franklin basically flat. Garden Ridge up 33. Uh, so that's what it looks like down in Aggieville.

Little rough in that area. I'm gonna jump into the Abilene area. This, folks, is where we see Clyde America. Abilene was down just a little bit, just 1%. They did have a positive audit adjustment, which would increase that just slightly. Uh, Clyde was up 5%. Stamford was up 7%. Uh, Tide was down .71. Merkel, Texas, the home of Sterling Nairn, who took my job in Hudson Oaks, cool dude-

I think the home of the German chancellor.

I, I doubt it, no. 2.87% up. What else we got?

That was a, that was a world politics joke.

That was-

You obviously didn't get that one

... and it, it, it fell flat. So I have my political science degree from a real political science program where we studied the science of political science.

There, there is no science to politics.

That's true.

Just-

It's a crazy world

... I can throw some cold water on you.

Is that it? Is that everybody?

That's it. San Angelo, uh, up 4.5%. And the Waco area, Waco, uh, down 1.1%. They do have a positive audit adjustment of about 76,000 that helped that. Hewitt down 4.6. Woodway up 6.3. Robinson up 11.4. Lacy Lakeview, 21.4% growth. Uh, McGregor up two and a half. And Beverly Hills up 1.3.

Beverly Hills. Brenham, Texas, is at-

Did you know that they made, like, four Beverly Hills Cops?

Yes. I've watched all of them.

I didn't know that. I'd only seen the first one.

Yeah. No, they're, they're very good. Brenham, Texas was up 2.82%. Just wanna throw that out there, and I think that pretty much-

Hey, I have a question

... wraps it. What's up?

You're aware of this, uh, this stupid contrarian debate about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie?

Oh, really? Why didn't we talk about this in December?

Why don't pe-

We could've made a whole podcast on this.

I, I think it's asinine.

Okay.

But why don't people say that Lethal Weapon is a Christmas movie? I think there's a bigger case that Lethal Weapon's a Christmas movie than Die Hard.

Just because Lethal Weapon was released in December?

No, it was set at Christmas, and there's, there's a lot more, uh, aspects of Christmas in Lethal Weapon than Die Hard. I'm just throwing that out there.

Okay.

I don't think either of them should be classified as Christmas movies, but we happen to watch Le- uh, we, we go through these phases. Uh, like I mentioned Beverly Hills Cop because we watched the first one just because, you know, just to watch it, and then I realized there were three other ones, so now we have to watch all three of those.

Mm-hmm.

So, uh, sometimes we make the mistake of starting a set of movies, and then we have to just watch all of them. So we watched the first Die Hard around Christmas, and then we had to watch the other four, and they're, they're all terrible. But anyway, so now I've got three more Lethal Weapons to watch at some point- ... in the near future.

Nice. I like how your brain works. So folks, uh, overall news, December sales, not terrible, you know. I would say the picture looked a little rosier than expected. Chad, what was-

Yeah, I, I-

What is your wrap-up?

... I would be interested to take out all of the audit adjustments and see what that total change is. I think it would still be positive, uh, but you did have a couple of cities that were greatly, greatly helped by some audit corrections.

Gotcha. So I mean, all in all, though, I mean, it was a, it was a decent month. There were some audit adjustments that were made. We're gonna give the Star Baker Award to Odessa because-

We can give it to Midland-Odessa

... yeah, I mean, y- in the Midland-Odessa area, like, hey, pretty excited for you guys to actually see a little bit of a bottom maybe 'cause we were curious if that was going to arrive. Uh, and to be frank, that region was hurting before COVID, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, uh, almost two years of declines that they're rolling out of at this point, so uh, excited to see that. Uh, DFW, again, kinda came out as, as a, you know, one of the strong regions in the state, uh, for kinda the second month in a row. And, uh, you know, we continue to see strong growth in Texas, uh, through business relocation, economic development. I think we were just named, uh, you know, uh, the DFW as a region was, like, named number two in the nation for, uh, for regions to be relocating to. I think Austin is actually number one. Uh, and so, and, and Houston is probably also on that top five list. Uh, San Antonio, I think, makes the top 25. Uh, so we're, we're... You know, look, we're seeing a lot of growth in the state of Texas, uh, from an economic development standpoint, uh, a lot of relocations, uh, that are occurring in our area. So pretty exciting, uh, where things are gonna go in the future. I am not a pessimist when it comes to the Texas economy. Um, I was a, I was a pessimist of the comptroller's-... uh, original, uh, revenue projection, uh, the one where he basically stated we were gonna be down $5 billion. Now he's basically come in and said we're gonna be pretty much flat, uh, in the biennium. So the Texas legislative session should be fun to watch, uh, as they have very little to argue about. Uh, so-

Oh, they have a lot to argue about.

They have a lot to argue about. They have a, very little they should be arguing about, 'cause they have the money to fund state government with a little bit of cut, but not too bad. I don't think we're gonna be in, in the shape that many other states are in. Um, which in Texas means we're gonna hear a lot of stupid for the next, like, three months. I think that's the kindest way to say it. We'll see all types of legislative proposals that everybody knows are not gonna pass, but everybody wants meat and potatoes to take home to their district to talk about how they were, you know, super influential or crazy conservative or whatever that may be. Um, just, you know, it's a blessing in Texas that we only meet every two years. So that's my wrap-up on this podcast. Chad, what do you got?

Uh, why don't you hit the comptroller's potentially changing some of those internet adjustments?

Yeah, so, uh, you know, obviously the comptroller has continued to delay that. We believe it's delayed all the way until October at this point.

Yeah. So just as a quick recap, we've talked about this quite a bit, so I don't wanna rehash too much, but the comptroller has made a bunch of proposals to change certain aspects of, uh, what defines a place of business. And so there will be some cities that will be hit hard by this change, uh, because what they ef- effectively have is, uh, buildings-

Mm-hmm

... which are being classified as places of business for the purpose of collecting sales tax. In, in most cases, these buildings were created and built because of a, an incentive agreement, right?

Right.

So the comptroller has proposed some, some changes to the administrative code to get those types of scenarios a little bit more in line with how online and remote sales take place now.

So the comptroller, uh, tried to go and define a place of business. They opened a Pandora's box of boiling poop and, uh, they have tried to work with a number of cities to, to figure it out. The, the reality is, is that, um, the comptroller probably went a little too far in some of the-

I think they just went too fast.

M- maybe. I, I would say they went-

It's good to have some consistency in how things are defined, but they, they were talking about... The thing that I didn't understand is they wanted to implement all these changes, like, within three months of-

Mm-hmm

... of announcing them. Unless you had an incentive agreement, in which case you were given two or three years-

Correct

... to sort of unwind that. So it, if the purpose was to prevent cities from creating, you know, air quotes, s- like, shell businesses so that they could, uh, get sales tax and then in order to do that, give a lot of it back to the, to the company, then it didn't make a whole lot of sense to make everyone else who wasn't actually doing that suffer immediately while the people that were, uh, sort of, uh, doing what the comptroller thought was sort of going around the intent of the place of business definitions.

I think there's a significant difference, uh, in a fully automated warehouse that doesn't have any sales staff or anybody that's really conducting business there.

Or really even, uh, inventory.

Yeah, I mean, very... I mean, that's the extreme version, right? Like, I put a couple servers in a building, I generate sales tax, I get a kickback on that sales tax, and all the other cities lose out because all that sales tax goes to that one city, and the private industry gets that. The other, you know, as you kinda go down the, the line, you then have, like, warehousing operations for online sales, right? Uh, which don't have any sales component. Then you have warehousing operations that also have a sales office in them. Um, and, and then you, you, you have what I would consider, uh, really what has delayed, in my opinion, the comptroller implementing the rules at this point, which would be specifically Round Rock, uh, and, and Dell Computer.

Dell, yeah.

Right. So when you order a Dell computer, you can go through the online process and order a Dell computer, um, and, and probably not talk to anybody, but that's not really the way Dell operates. They, they operate, even if you're ordering online, somebody at Dell in Round Rock is talking to you on the computer through some type of messenger or through a 1-800 phone number-

Or email, yeah

... or email. Like, it's, it's not, uh, it's not clean cut like you're going to Amazon and buying, you know-

Yeah, or just, like, buying an iMac from apple.com and they ship it to you.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you know, everything is, is pretty customized at Dell when you're, when you're buying it. Uh, and even when you're not buying something customized, there's always an interaction with a sales agent. Uh, and that's just kinda Dell's, uh, kinda thing. They, they just do that. Um, a- a- and so I think Dell's argument, which is not public, everybody kinda behind the scenes believes this is what the argument's going on, is, you know, we are a place of business in Round Rock, Texas, because we're having these communications, these phone calls, all these different types of things that are happening here, even though somebody can't walk into our facility at Round Rock and buy a computer, right? Um, and, and it's a... I, I would say it's a valid point.

Yeah. And to be clear, we have no inside information on-

No

... Round Rock or Dell. Uh, but one would imagine that there is some kind of incentive attached to that location.

Correct. And on deals of this size, the other important thing to note is, is that a lot of these cities and these users were actually given, uh, taxation opinion letters from the comptroller when these deals were struck, right? So, so they went into this with a, an actual, like, legal opinion from the comptroller's office that said, "Yes, you can do this deal the way that you wanna do it." And now the comptroller's kinda changing some of those rules. I, I think there's a... We don't take an opinion on any of this. I, I just wanna be very clear. We work for clients of all sizes. Some of them will be impacted, some of them will not. The important thing is, is that the clients that we have that have or are going to be impacted, we want to educate-Right? And so when they reach out to us, which we had one reach out to us this week, we wanna make sure that they understand how to define something as a place of business. I think that's pretty clear on how you do that, and we help those cities do that. So just because the comptroller's changing the rules doesn't necessarily mean that your operation doesn't meet the threshold. Um, and you just need to understand it and understand those rules, and we've had clients that have successfully gone in and renegotiated their agreements or had a conversation, and those are legit-

Reorganized the, the actual business operations.

Yeah, reorganized the business operations so that it meets that threshold. And, and that's not them finding a loophole. I wanna be very clear. That's an actual business operation on the ground that is performing sales functions so that they can operate as a place of business. This is not a loophole, um, 'cause Chad and I took a really strong approach to that early on, and we continue to, that we were not going to help any client's city find loopholes, right? Um, and, and I think, uh, really I've been very impressed with the cities that we've worked with to understand that they know that they should do it the correct way. Um-

Yeah. Well, I mean, the worst thing that you could do is find some way to get around this, and then five, six years from now, the comptroller comes back and with an even h- sh- you know, stronger fist and, and corrects that, right? So-

Yeah.

The writing is on the wall about what the comptroller is trying to do, so let's not skirt around that anymore. Let's find ways to actually comply with, with what the intent of these rules are or is.

Correct. But the can-kicking has been real at this point. Like, the, the comptroller is clearly, um, avoiding the implementation of the rule at this point, and, and mainly, I think, because they're looking for some legislative relief, um, the cities are looking-

Yeah, a pandemic didn't hurt in terms of timing

... yeah, the pandemic didn't hurt, correct, and, and they are looking for some legislative relief on this issue as well. So, uh, we'll kinda see where it goes and, and, and, you know, what happens, but we'll keep everybody informed as, as we get information.

Cool. Well, Pat, I'm glad that we were able to, uh, finally get back on our game day. Uh, it's been a little while. Apologize for the delay, but we're back and better than ever. You got anything else?

No, that's it, man. Uh, just super excited to be back on, and, uh, hopefully, uh, with a good month, we'll have another one next month.

All right. Thanks, Pat.

Thanks, Chad.