StateWays is the only magazine exclusively covering the control state system within the beverage alcohol industry, with annual updates from liquor control commissions and alcohol control boards and yearly fiscal reporting from control jurisdictions
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/48975
slow economy, and states coffers continue to benefit from the revenue increases contributed to the control states from their beverage alcohol operations. And even as state legislatures are tightening financial expenditures and reducing budgets in a wide range of areas, control state operations continue to prosper overall, with productivity and efficiency gains allowing agencies to stretch their resources. This is the 15th consecutive year that StateWays is presenting its annual review of the financial progress being made throughout the control states, providing an overview of the beverage alcohol business. This is based on reports from all 19 control jurisdictions, and we're grateful to the control state agencies and personnel who provided extensive information to help us compile this annual report. Our data details state-by-state dollar sales, revenue contribution, distilled spirits and wine (where applicable) sales volume, operating expenses, and the numbers of types of outlets and employees in the system. We've also included projected sales volumes and revenue contributions for the Fiscal Year 2012. Where appropri- ate, we've provided descriptions of any additional circum- stances a state would like to provide that might amplify what is going on in a state's beverage alcohol operation. In addition to this individual state information, we've ranked the jurisdictions based on their total sales and aggregated some key statistics to give an overall sense of the growth and size of business throughout the control states. For most states, Fiscal Year 2011 runs through the middle of the 2011 calendar year (actually from mid- A 20 AN ANNUAL REPORT PROVIDING THE LATEST DATA FROM THE CONTROL STATES BY RICHARD BRANDES s privatization initiatives continue to challenge several control state jurisdictions, one thing has remained constant throughout the control states: agencies continue to deliver dollar and volume growth, even in a 2010 through mid-2011). During this period, the overall U.S. economy saw some solid gains at first, which then slowed and weakened, as fears of another significant economic slowdown resurfaced based on a variety of factors, such as financial/banking and sovereign debt troubles in Europe, a do-nothing Congress in Washington, the ongoing difficulties with solving the housing and unemployment crises, and several others. Delivering Positive Results Still, control state operations continue to deliver positive results, as they have for more than two decades continuously now. Total gross sales grew to $9.02 billion (from $8.72 billion in FY 2010), representing a 3.5% gain over the previous year. Overall revenue contribution to state coffers by con- trol jurisdictions increased by 4.5% to $3.16 billion (from $3.03 billion in FY 2010). Distilled spirits case volume rose 3.6% in FY 2011 to 4.6 million cases. All these per- centage increases outpaced last year's percentage gains, an impressive overall performance. On the other hand, oper- ating expenses also rose, by 5.3% to $1.2 billion, and employment among control state agencies was decidedly mixed. Indeed, among the 19 control jurisdictions, six decreased their number of employees, six increased employees, while seven remained the same. Last year, by comparison, 11 control states increased their employee count. And this year, 12 states added agencies, state stores, or retail outlets, continuing a pattern of growth over the years (four states remained the same while three states saw a decreaed number of outlets). State Gains Significantly, every control jurisdiction increased its gross sales revenue, some by a considerable amount. StateWays s www.stateways.com s November/December 2011