St. Tammany’s total employment in the first quarter was flat compared to the first quarter last year with a quarter over quarter growth of 0.2%.   The Louisiana Department of Labor (LDL) is benchmarking their labor statistics for all Louisiana parishes and updating labor statistics while establishing a more accurate employment count for each parish.  In doing so, LDL is updating their statistics as they go through the year, therefore, the months of April through December will be addressed when they occur in the year.  Meanwhile, those months will show the non-updated figures.  In the past, the employment in St. Tammany Parish had been under counted by 7,000 to 8,000 employees.  LDL is also updating the corresponding months in 2004.  When the entire 2005-year is complete, there will be a true picture of employment levels and growth in St. Tammany Parish, 2005 compared to 2004.

Permitting of single family homes in the Parish for the first quarter shows an 8.8% increase over permits in the first quarter last year.  Most of this growth occurred in the month of January where the January over January comparison was significant, 87.6%.  In that residential building impact fees took effect after January, many residential building permits were filed during January to beat the fee.  Recently, mortgage rates have slipped slightly lower than forecasts.   First quarter commercial building permits, although still growing in number but at a slower growth rate, fell 12.3% compared with commercial building permits issued in the first quarter 2004.

Sales of existing homes in the Parish continued its climb through the first quarter with 7.3% more homes sold compared to sales in the first quarter last year.  All three months in the quarter showed increased sales compared to corresponding sales in the first quarter last year.  Purchasing a home is a faster tract toward homeownership than building one, thus avoiding the longer wait while mortgage rates expect to rise. How far will mortgage rates have to rise before new home construction and existing home buying are adversely affected is difficult to estimate.   National estimates of future mortgage rates are expected to rise but are likely to remain below 7% through the year.  First quarter total dollar sales volume was 13.7% more than for the first quarter last year.  As the supply of existing homes shrinks, home prices tend to rise.  First quarter average sales price of a home rose from $173,078 in the first quarter last year to $183,381 in the first quarter this year, an increase of 6.0%.

First quarter total sales tax collections and retail total sales in St. Tammany Parish was 9.0% higher than in the first quarter last year.  It is clear that retail trade activity in the Parish continues to be strong.  All three months in the quarter exhibited growth – January, 8.7%; February, 12.6% and March, 6.4%.  St. Tammany Parish continues to enjoy expansion of retail and commercial facilities throughout the Parish and is able to attract consumers from bordering parishes and counties in southwest Mississippi to augment its sales and sales tax collections.

After more than a year of blistering pace of new business startups, the pace of new business incorporations has cooled to a slower pace in St. Tammany Parish.  First quarter new business startups were 37.8% lower than in the first quarter 2004.  The pace of new business startups has been erratic over the past several months with no clear pattern developing trend – one month will be up significantly while the next month will be down significantly.  The next several months of tracking business startups may yield a clue to the direction and pace of new businesses.

Although there was a decrease in the number of announced projects and investment in the first quarter compared to the first quarter last year, there has been a marginal increase in permanent job creation albeit a smaller job number.   In the first quarter there were five announced projects expecting to yield $2,190,000 investment and an estimated 35 permanent jobs.  This compares to an investment of $13,434,181 and 159 estimated permanent jobs in the first quarter last year.

First quarter electric customer growth continues to expand at an accelerated pace due largely to the accelerated building permit activity in the latter months of 2004 and the first month of 2005.  Whereas the electric customer growth in the first part of 2004 was in the 3.0% to 3.5% range, the recent period growth is approaching 4.0%.  A slowdown of residential building permits such as experienced in the first quarter could slow the growth of electric customers.

First quarter hotel receipts were 4.8% lower than for the first quarter last year.  Although the first quarter receipts were below first quarter receipts last year, January and March receipts this year were the second highest receipts for each respective month since 1999.

Third quarter 2004 cost of living index for St. Tammany Parish was 96.9. Based on a 100 scale, St. Tammany Parish composite cost of living for middle management households was 3.1% below the national average. St. Tammany Parish third quarter ranking was 8th among a group of twelve selected metropolitan areas nearest to St. Tammany Parish with composite indices ranging from 88.3 for Jackson, MS to 105.6 for Baton Rouge. Other metropolitan indices were Mobile, 89.6: Beaumont, TX, 90.4; Birmingham, 92.9; Biloxi-Gulfport, 93.3; Hattiesburg, 94.3; Montgomery, 95.5; Tuscaloosa, 98.7; Lafayette, LA, 99.0; and Pensacola, 100.2.

For the third straight month national consumer confidence dipped in April, according to The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index.   “Less robust current conditions and a more cautious outlook have consumers feeling less confident in April than in March,” says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center, “Despite the decline, the Present Situation Index remains at levels indicative of a healthy economy.  However, the Expectations Index is now at its lowest level since July 2003.  Looking ahead, consumers do not anticipate an improvement in economic growth nor in their incomes.   And they expect a tighter job market over the summer months.”

The Conference Board announced the U.S. leading index decreased 0.4 percent, the coincident index increased 0.2 percent and the lagging index decreased 0.1 percent in March after a small increase in February.  “The leading index has been essentially flat since October 2004 following a small decline over the previous five months.  Also, there have been more weaknesses than strengths among the components of the leading index in recent months.  The coincident index has been increasing at a relatively steady 2.5 percent annual rate since April 2003, and the strength continues to be widespread.  At the same time, the growth rate of real GDP has been fluctuating around a 4.0 percent rate, including 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004.  The leading index has been increasing since the end of 2001, but the upward trend has been briefly interrupted twice.  The recent flatness of the leading index (compared to its long-term trend of 1.5 percent growth) is consistent with the economy continuing to expand in the near term, but more slowly than its long-term average rate”.  The St. Tammany economic expansion during the first quarter continues as the quarter over quarter growth was 1.8% and the annual growth was 2.4%.   Leading the parish growth were building permits, sales, electric customers, and employment.

The St. Tammany public school system is one of the first public school systems in the nation to receive regional accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools on Accreditation and School Improvement.  Each school in the system had to meet accreditation for the entire system to be considered for this honor.  Only three school systems in the SACS region have earned accreditation:   Fulton and Cobb counties in Georgia and Volusia County in Florida.   The school system worked with SACS for 18 months to prepare for the review.  The St. Tammany school system has developed a plan to develop and communicate a unified vision to faculty and staff; promote stability in leadership; effectively assess, align and improve student learning; have a network of student services and other aspects of a quality education process.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS