State stores

Harold Brubaker, has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the Governor's 'plan' for those can't-seem-to-kill-'em state liquor stores:

Governor Tom Wolf's budget proposal called for a modernization of State Stores to generate $185 million in additional annual profit by fiscal 2018. The dramatically increased profits would be used to make payments on a three billion dollar bond issue designed to help close the thirty billion dollar gap in the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, according to Wolf's plan.
Under it, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, endangered by Republican talk of privatizing the system, would instead have a monumental task, assuming it gains General Assembly approval.
Based on the system's profitability in the year ended 30 June 2015, gross revenue from the state's six-hundred-plus wine and spirits outlets would have to soar to nearly six billion dollars in fiscal 2018 from just over two billion dollars in fiscal 2014 to generate the additional profits.
How would the Wolf administration get there? "The governor believes we can make the system more convenient for consumers and achieve revenue growth related to an increase in sales from a variety of initiatives, including expanded hours, like Sunday sales and holiday sales, improved store locations, flexible pricing and customer engagement, consortium purchasing with other control states, and sales out of state that result from our competitive pricing," spokesman Jeff Sheridan said.
Republicans were skeptical. Representative Chris Ross, a Republican from Chester and chairman of the House Liquor Control Committee, said he had "serious doubts that the modernization proposals can generate anything close to the revenues projected for them."
The Republican-controlled House last month passed a bill that would privatize state wine and liquor stores and, by selling licenses, bring in an estimated billion dollars to help close a multi-billion-dollar budget deficit expected in the fiscal year starting 1 July 2015.
Modernization was a central topic at last year's LCB budget hearing before the House Appropriations Committee. Board officials discussed the reform ideas now being touted by Wolf with lawmakers who were eager to learn how much additional revenue the state could reap.
Liquor board officials estimated that expanding Sunday hours and opening more stores on Sunday, and allowing more pricing flexibility, would boost annual profits fifty million to sevent million. That is far from the $185 million Wolf has called for.
Net profits in the year ended 30 June 2014 were $123.68 million on gross revenue of $2.27 billion; that amounts to net profit margin of just under six percent.
At that margin, gross revenue would have to be six billion dollars to achieve an additional $185 million in annual profit.

Rico says if they raise prices to make their goals, more people (like Rico) will just go out of state to buy their booze; it's a death spiral...