But after 40 years in this business, I'll take managing costs over searching for sales and traffic any day.
The impact of these staffing challenges cost us 3% to 4% in first quarter in sales, which we view as upside as we -- as we get those restaurants staffed and trained over the coming months.
When we look at the totality of the business, Chili's is running positive sales and traffic and maintaining a sizable traffic gap to the industry, most recently at 9% on a two-year look as measured by NAFTrack.
For the first quarter, Brinker reported total revenues of $860 million with consolidated comp sales of 17%.
Keeping with our ongoing strategy, the majority of these sales were driven by traffic up 11% for the quarter, a 9% beat versus the industry on a two year look.
The top-line increase resulted in an adjusted earnings per share of $0.34, up from $0.28 in the previous fiscal year.
We do consider the portion of these costs above our normal operating levels to be transitory, approximately 130 basis points in the quarter, 60 of which are incremental training and overtime costs.
Following this increase, Chili's will be carrying a total of 3% of incremental price compared to last year.
Due to the timing of price actions and the fact that Maggiano's will evaluate its menu pricing after the holiday season, we expect the second quarter blended Brinker price to be closer to 2%.
Our cash flow for the first quarter remained strong, with cash from operating activities of $40 million and EBITDA of $69 million.
Our total funded debt leverage was 2.6 times and our lease-adjusted leverage ended the quarter at 3.7 times.
Specifically, annual revenues between $3.75 billion and $3.85 billion and annual adjusted earnings per share between $3.50 and $3.80.

Summary:
The top-line increase resulted in an adjusted earnings per share of $0.34, up from $0.28 in the previous fiscal year.
Specifically, annual revenues between $3.75 billion and $3.85 billion and annual adjusted earnings per share between $3.50 and $3.80.