Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Mark Marostica - Piper Jaffray.
Mark Marostica - Piper Jaffray
Regarding the guidance on the top line organic growth, which you maintained for the upcoming year, and just question that guidance in the face of what looks to be a tougher economy then when you gave that originally, certainly job growth and retail sales.
And then, while it’s difficult to perhaps interpret this as a trend with April pending home sales up, certainly that may bring into the question, redilation of homes and property tax revenue per states maybe being under some pressure. So maybe pulling all those together, can you give me a sense of why you are still as confident as you were in the top line guidance?
David Vander Zanden
Back in the February timeframe, we listened closely to what the governors’ proposals were in the market and for the most part we saw more favorable proposals than unfavorable, realizing that these governors still had to negotiate with the legislature and they had several months to go and watch the economy.
But we did at that time factor down what we would have normally put out for guidance on top line growth. Watching a lot of the stats in the market, we saw three months and we had two months of that data in our hands in February of job growth for a decline. We saw some improvement in the April timeframe, and actually May job decline came in about half of what we saw at January, February, and March.
Retail sales for the most part of the month have yet to decline, and the most recent data on May is up 1%. So, we look at the data and it’s a bit mixed positive, mixed negative, nothing is causing us to change our position from the macroeconomic data that we are looking at, and I commented on the diesel and the heating oil and the effect that gas prices may have on schools.
And then we updated that information and looked at what the states had done since February. California had us a little more concerned in February. It has moved substantially in a positive direction, Florida has come in about where we thought.
So, as we pull all that data together, we really don’t believe that our outlook has changed greatly from where we were in February and that we have lowered revenue guidance, if you will, at the time we set it in February from what we might have normally put out there. So, our view is that what we are seeing so far is consistent with our expectations.
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