In addition to temporary plant and store closes, our COVID-19 action plan included a temporary furloughing 70% of our workforce, eliminating all non-essential operating expenses, significantly reducing capital expenditures, suspending the June dividend and share repurchase program, and temporarily reducing pay by 50% for senior management and 25% for all other salaried employees, with our Board of Directors foregoing the cash portion of their compensation.
We also proactively drew down $75 million on our credit facility to ensure liquidity through this period.
While we were pleased to have brought back some 6,000 furloughed workers, we made the decision to permanently close our Newton, Mississippi La-Z-Boy branded manufacturing facility and reduce our global workforce by approximately 10%.
To level set where we are today, we started calendar 2020 with 9,800 employees, and during the worst of the pandemic, temporarily furloughed about 6,800.
In the end about 10% became permanent reductions.
When we restarted our plans from a complete shutdown, we ramped up to about 50% in May versus May of 2019.
And as we head into July, we expect to be operating at 80% of year ago volumes.
We closed fiscal 2020 with $1.7 billion in sales, generated $164 million in cash from operations and returned $68 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
To provide some perspective, with respect to one component of our distribution, for the entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery network, written same-store sales increased 10.5% in the third quarter and increased 20% in the month of February, only to drop 44% in March, and 90% in April, in concert with the pandemic.
As a result, for the quarter, we experienced a 19% decline in consolidated Company sales to $367 million and the GAAP operating income for the period was $13 million and non-GAAP operating income was $34 million.
Even with this dramatic impact, for the quarter, we were still able to generate $44 million in cash and returned $14 million to shareholders through dividends paid and share purchases made prior to the shutdown.
For the quarter, on an 8% sales decline to $140 million, the segment posted a double-digit operating margin driven primarily by prior period written sales delivered during the quarter and lower operating expenses related to the Company's COVID-19 action plan.
For the first three quarters of fiscal 2020, written sales for our Company-owned stores were up 8.1%.
For that same period, delivered same-store sales were up 3.6% with both metrics, written and delivered, driven by improved traffic trends, conversion and strong execution at the store level.
After an extremely strong February start, which delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores with -- delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores, increasing 15%, they were only up 2% in March and declined 52% in April, culminating in a fourth quarter delivered same-store sales decrease of 10%.
Now for the broader store network, includes both Company-owned and dealer-owned stores, written same-store sales for the 354 La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores in North America decreased 35% in the fourth quarter.
As we noted, even with a 20% increase for the month of February, it was hard to overcome the effect of store closures throughout the period with many stores closed for a part of March and the majority of stores closed in April as per local guidelines, driving written sales, same-store sales down in March and April 44% and 90% respectively.
The challenging fourth quarter impacted the full '20 year with written same-store sales down 3.6% even after a 6.4% increase for the first three quarters of the year.
We ended the year with 354 stores including one net new and 166 in the new concept design.
Presuming business trends continue to improve, we anticipate adding four net new stores over the course of fiscal 2021 bringing our total store count to 358.
In the upholstery segment on sales -- on a sales decline of 22% to $253 million, non-GAAP operating margin increased to 11.8%.
Margins benefited from a one-time $16 million rebate of previously paid tariffs and favorable commodity costs, mostly offset by higher bad debt expense due to the Art Van furniture bankruptcy and the provision for potential credit losses in the COVID-19 environment in SG&A.
Going to our Casegoods segment, with a 20% decline in sales, our non-GAAP operating margin decreased to 1.9% primarily reflecting the impact of COVID-19, and related temporary manufacturing facility and retail closures and an increase in bad debt expense given the current economic environment.
For the quarter, Joybird's sales reported in Corporate and Other declined 30% to $15.4 million as the business posted a larger operating loss than the prior year period.
On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter sales declined 19% to $367 million in fiscal '20, Q4 versus the prior-year period, reflecting two months of dramatic, temporary impacts from the COVID pandemic.
Consolidated non-GAAP operating income was $34 million versus $39 million in last year's quarter and consolidated non-GAAP operating margin was 9.3% versus 8.6% reflecting increases in the upholstery and retail segments, offset by a decline in Casegoods margins.
Results for the quarter include a 440 basis point benefit related to a rebate of previously paid Chinese tariffs, almost entirely offset by higher bad debt expense.
Fiscal 2019 fourth quarter results include a 40 basis point charge related to changes in employee benefit policies.
Non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.49 per diluted share in the current quarter versus $0.64 in last year's fourth quarter.
Moving on to full year results for fiscal 2020, sales decreased 2.4% to $1.7 billion, again reflecting strong performance through February and two months of impact from COVID-19.
Consolidated non-GAAP operating income increased to $139 million from $137 million in fiscal 2019, and consolidated non-GAAP operating margin was 8.2% versus 7.8% in the prior year, with results reflecting improvement in our upholstery and retail segments.
Diluted non-GAAP earnings per share for fiscal 2020 were $2.16 versus $2.14 in fiscal 2019.
Consolidated gross margin for the full fiscal year increased 230 basis points.
Improved gross margin was driven by rebates on previously paid duties which provided a 100 basis point increase to gross margin and changes on our consolidated business mix due to growth in our retail segment and the contribution from Joybird, both of which carry a higher gross margin than our wholesale businesses, which accounted for 90 basis point increase.
Moving on to SG&A for the full fiscal, on lower sales volume for the year, SG&A as a percent of sales increased 190 basis points.
Changes in our consolidated mix with Retail and Joybird composing a higher percentage of our business increased SG&A as a percent of sales by 130 basis points for the year.
Bad debt expense drove an 80 basis point increase on the year, primarily due to the Art Van bankruptcy as well as a provision for credit losses given the current economic environment.
In fiscal 2019, we recognized a one-time $3.8 million benefit due to changes in employee vacation policies, the absence of which resulted in a comparative 20 basis point increase in SG&A as a percent of sales for fiscal 2020.
Partially offsetting these increases was a 90 basis point decrease in SG&A as a percent of sales related to lower incentive compensation costs as we fell short of our targets due to the impact of COVID-19.
On a GAAP basis, our effective tax rate for fiscal 2020 was 31.4% versus 26.4% last year.
Impacting this year's effective tax rate was a net tax expense of $4 million primarily from the tax effect of the non-deductible goodwill impairment charge related to Joybird, and tax expense of $1.3 million from deferred tax attributable to undistributed foreign earnings no longer permanently reinvested.
Absent discrete adjustments, the effective tax rate in fiscal 2020 would have been 26.4%.
Our effective tax rate varies from the 21% federal statutory rate, primarily due to state taxes and for fiscal '21 absent discrete items, we continue to estimate our effective tax rate on a GAAP basis, will be in the range of 25% to 26%.
Turning to cash, we generated $164 million in cash from operating activities in fiscal 2020.
We ended the year with $264 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, including $75 million proactively drawn on the Company's credit facility to enhance liquidity in response to COVID-19, as well as $29 million in investments to enhance returns on cash.
This compares with the $132 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash and $31 million in investments to enhance returns on cash at the end of fiscal 2019.
During the year, we invested $46 million in capital, primarily related to machinery and equipment upgrades to our Dayton manufacturing facility, and investments in our retail stores.
Over the fiscal year, we also paid $25 million in dividends and spent $43 million purchasing 1.4 million shares of stock in the open market under our existing authorized share repurchase program, which leaves 4.5 million shares in purchase availability under that authorization.
We expect capital expenditures for fiscal '21 to be in the range of $25 million to $40 million, largely dependent on economic conditions and business recovery.
And we anticipate one time pre-tax charges of $5 million to $7 million or $0.08 per share to $0.11 per share related to our recently announced closure of the Newton assembly plant and the 10% reduction of our global workforce.
In my more than 40 years at La-Z-Boy, I have seen the Company manage its way through many crisis, but never seen an event the magnitude of COVID-19 where we were in a no revenue environment for an extended period of time.

Summary:
While we were pleased to have brought back some 6,000 furloughed workers, we made the decision to permanently close our Newton, Mississippi La-Z-Boy branded manufacturing facility and reduce our global workforce by approximately 10%.
In the end about 10% became permanent reductions.
After an extremely strong February start, which delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores with -- delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores, increasing 15%, they were only up 2% in March and declined 52% in April, culminating in a fourth quarter delivered same-store sales decrease of 10%.
Now for the broader store network, includes both Company-owned and dealer-owned stores, written same-store sales for the 354 La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores in North America decreased 35% in the fourth quarter.
Non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.49 per diluted share in the current quarter versus $0.64 in last year's fourth quarter.
And we anticipate one time pre-tax charges of $5 million to $7 million or $0.08 per share to $0.11 per share related to our recently announced closure of the Newton assembly plant and the 10% reduction of our global workforce.