Consolidated revenues for our third quarter were $464.3 million, up 4.2% from the prior year and fully diluted earnings per share were $2.21, up from $1.12 in the third quarter a year ago.
For example, merchandised amortization for the full year fiscal 2021 is running at least 100 basis points lower than more historical levels.
As Steve mentioned, consolidated revenues in our third quarter of 2021 were $464.3 million, an increase of 4.2% from $445.5 million a year ago, and consolidated operating income increased to $54.2 million from $27.7 million or 95.5%.
Net income for the quarter increased to $42 million or $2.21 per diluted share from $21.3 million or $1.12 per diluted share.
Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 22.9% compared to 21.8% in the prior year.
Our Core Laundry revenues for the quarter were $409 million, an increase of 5.3% from the third quarter of 2020.
Core Laundry organic growth which adjusts for the estimated effective acquisitions, as well as, fluctuations in the Canadian dollar was 4.3%.
This increase was primarily driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly impacting our customers' operations and ware levels in prior year, which was partially offset by a large $20.1 million direct sale also in prior year.
Core Laundry operating margin increased to 11.2% for the quarter from $45.6 million, from 5.1% in prior year or $19.7 million.
The increase was primarily driven by a number of items affecting our prior-year period, including: The impact of the decline in rental revenues on our cost structure; higher cost of revenues related to the large $20.1 million direct sale; higher bad debt expense and; additional costs which the Company incurred responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Energy costs were 4.2% of revenues in the third quarter of 2021 compared to 3.4% the prior year.
Revenues increased to $38.2 million from $36.2 million in prior year or 5.7%, and were primarily driven by growth in our cleanroom and European nuclear operations.
Segment's operating margin increased to 21.7% from 17.6% primarily due to lower merchandise costs and bad debt expense as a percentage of revenues, as well as costs incurred in the prior year responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our First Aid segment's revenues were $17.1 million compared to $20.9 million in the prior year.
However, the segment's operating profit was nominal compared to $1.6 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 $535 million at the end of our third quarter of fiscal 2021.
For the first three quarters of fiscal 2021, capital expenditures totaled $96.6 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.
During the quarter, we capitalized $4.2 million related to our ongoing CRM project which consisted of license fees, third-party consulting costs and capitalized internal labor costs.
As of the end of our quarter, we had capitalized a total of $32 million related to the CRM project.
In the third fiscal quarter of 2021, we began to depreciate part of the system over a 10-year life, and our quarterly depreciation approximated $0.7 million.
As a reminder, the depreciation of the full system combined with additional hardware we will install to support our new capabilities like mobile handheld devices for our route drivers will eventually ramp to an estimated $6 million to $7 million of additional depreciation expense per year.
As of May 29th, 2021, the Company had repurchased approximately 368,000 shares of common stock for $61.8 million under the program.
Based on our results to date, as well as our outlook for the remainder of the year, we now expect that our fiscal 2021 revenues will be between $1.810 billion and $1.817 billion.
We further expect that full year diluted earnings per share will be between $7.80 and $8.00.
This outlook assumes that our Core Laundry operating margin in the fourth quarter will approximate 10.6% at the midpoint of the range.

Summary:
Consolidated revenues for our third quarter were $464.3 million, up 4.2% from the prior year and fully diluted earnings per share were $2.21, up from $1.12 in the third quarter a year ago.
As Steve mentioned, consolidated revenues in our third quarter of 2021 were $464.3 million, an increase of 4.2% from $445.5 million a year ago, and consolidated operating income increased to $54.2 million from $27.7 million or 95.5%.
Net income for the quarter increased to $42 million or $2.21 per diluted share from $21.3 million or $1.12 per diluted share.
Based on our results to date, as well as our outlook for the remainder of the year, we now expect that our fiscal 2021 revenues will be between $1.810 billion and $1.817 billion.
We further expect that full year diluted earnings per share will be between $7.80 and $8.00.