Small Texas town relies on the lead-footed to pay its bills
Estelline uses speed-trap fines to finance nearly its entire budget
ESTELLINE — With his lean profile and weathered face, Officer Barney Gilley looks every bit the part of a West Texas lawman. Now and then, tourists stop and ask him to pose for snapshots in his mean-looking Dodge Charger squad car.
Most of the time, though, Gilley is the one making the introductions along U.S. 287 as it runs, briefly, through Estelline and its single blinking yellow light.
“People know me from Los Angeles to New York,” he says, a slight grin forming.
Gilley writes about 23 tickets a day to drivers who fail to slow as the wide, flat four-lane leaves the Panhandle’s red-dirt cotton fields and enters this farm town of 168 residents about a hundred miles southeast of Amarillo.
Despite a 1975 Texas law aimed at curbing speed traps, Estelline has been able to mine nearly its entire budget from motorists who fail to slow from 70 mph to 50 mph when they hit the city limits.
“We follow the state law,” said Estelline Mayor Rick Manley, whose current budget anticipates it will take in $320,000 in traffic fines this year. The town keeps some of the money but by law will have to give a chunk to the state.
Paying back the state
Texas’ speed-trap law uses an indirect approach to discourage small towns from relying too heavily on traffic tickets.
Under the law, which applies to towns of fewer than 5,000, nearly all traffic fines that exceed 30 percent of a city’s previous year’s total general revenues must be paid to the state. For instance, a town that takes in total revenues of $100,000 this year can keep only $30,000 in traffic fines next year, plus $1 for each ticket over the cap.
The law, which is enforced by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, prescribes no penalties — beside payment of money past due — for violations. And cities can grow their budgets each year by writing more tickets.
This year, Estelline will keep about $110,000 in highway fines, said Connie Mondragon, the municipal judge who also is working temporarily as city clerk.
“We’re able to increase our revenue a bit every year,” said Manley, a retired prison guard who moved to Estelline eight years ago.
At least five other small towns that aggressively ticket motorists appear to have learned how to live with Texas’ speed-trap law as well.
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