Consolidated revenues for our second quarter were $449.8 million, down 3.2% from the prior year and fully diluted earnings per share was $1.71, down 6% from the prior year.
As Steve mentioned, our second quarter of 2021's consolidated revenues were $449.8 million, down 3.2% from $464.6 million a year ago.
And consolidated operating income decreased to $40.7 million from $44.1 million or 7.8%.
Net income for the quarter decreased to $32.6 million or $1.71 per diluted share from $34.7 million or $1.82 per diluted share.
Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 22.7% compared to 24.2% in the prior year which favorably impacted the earnings per share comparison.
Our core laundry operations revenues for the quarter were $398.2 million, down 3.4% from the second quarter of 2020.
Core Laundry organic growth which adjusts for the estimated effective acquisitions as well as fluctuations in the Canadian dollar was negative 3.6%.
However, during the quarter, our top line performance was impacted by approximately $2 million from the effect of severe winter storms in Texas and the surrounding states on our operations as well as our customer locations.
Core Laundry operating margin decreased to 8.9% for the quarter or $35.4 million from 9.3% in prior year or $38.4 million.
In addition, the lost revenue and additional expense we incurred from the severe winter storms in Texas and the surrounding states reduced our operating income by approximately $2.6 million or $0.10 on EPS.
Energy costs increased to 4.2% of revenues in the second quarter of 2021, up from 4.1% in prior year.
Excluding those elevated expenses, energy costs would have been 3.9% of revenues as the benefit that we have been seeing over the last several quarters started to moderate with the price of fuel increasing nationally.
Revenues from our Specialty Garments segment, which delivers specialized nuclear decontamination and cleanroom products and services, decreased to $35.2 million from $36 million in prior year or 2.1%.
The segment's operating margin increased to 14.9% from 12.9%, primarily due to higher gross margin on its direct sales as well as lower travel related costs.
Our First Aid segment's revenues were $16.3 million compared to $16.4 million in the prior year.
However, the segment's operating profit was nominal compared to $1.1 million in the comparable period of 2020.
We continue to maintain a solid balance sheet and financial position with no long-term debt and cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaling $509.6 million at the end of our second quarter of fiscal 2021.
For the first half of fiscal 2021, capital expenditures totaled $66.9 million as we continue to invest in our future with new facility additions, expansions, updates and automation systems that will help us meet our long-term strategic objectives.
As a reminder, capex spend is elevated primarily due to the purchase of a $14.1 million building in New York City in our first quarter of 2020 which will provide us a strategic location for a future service center.
During the quarter we capitalized $2.2 million related to our ongoing CRM project which consisted of license fees, third-party consulting costs and capitalized internal labor costs.
As at the end of our quarter, we had capitalized a total of $27.7 million related to our CRM project.
As a result, we will start to depreciate the system over a 10 year life in our third fiscal quarter of 2021, with depreciation in the second half of the year approximating $1.5 million to $2 million.
[Technical Issues] for our new capabilities like mobile handheld devices for our route drivers will ramp to an estimated $6 million to $7 million of additional depreciation expense per year.
During the second quarter of fiscal 2021, we repurchased 12,200 shares of common stock for a total of $2.3 million under our previously announced stock repurchase program.
As of February 27, 2021, the Company had repurchased a total of 368,117 shares of common stock for $61.8 million under the program.
We expect our fiscal 2021 revenues to be between $1.793 billion and $1.803 billion, which at the midpoint of the range assumes an organic growth rate in our core laundry operations of 3.5%.
As a reminder, the prior year comparison for the second half of fiscal 2021 will be negatively impacted by a $20.1 million large direct sale to a healthcare customer that we recorded in our third fiscal quarter of 2020.
Full year diluted earnings per share is expected to be between $7.30 and $7.65.
This outlook assumes an operating margin in our core laundry operations for the second half of the year of 10.4% and reflects additional expense we expect to incur related to the deployment of our CRM system of approximately $5 million.

Summary:
Consolidated revenues for our second quarter were $449.8 million, down 3.2% from the prior year and fully diluted earnings per share was $1.71, down 6% from the prior year.
As Steve mentioned, our second quarter of 2021's consolidated revenues were $449.8 million, down 3.2% from $464.6 million a year ago.
Net income for the quarter decreased to $32.6 million or $1.71 per diluted share from $34.7 million or $1.82 per diluted share.
We expect our fiscal 2021 revenues to be between $1.793 billion and $1.803 billion, which at the midpoint of the range assumes an organic growth rate in our core laundry operations of 3.5%.
Full year diluted earnings per share is expected to be between $7.30 and $7.65.