Trail Development

 

Each year MTRA undertakes as many trail and horse camp assistance projects as we can manage with our volunteer efforts and for which we can raise the revenue to support. Our revenue comes only from your memberships, DNR grants, and your donations.

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Looking Ahead- Trail Survey Letter

Each December we send out a "needs survey" to over 90 of the parks and forests in the state, that we know have horse related facilities or the potential to develop multi-use facilities including horses. We ask Park Managers or other Administrators to list their needs for the current year as well as for the next year.  We  evaluate these requests and compare our ability to support them, coordinating our finacial support efforts with the Horse Trail Pass funds allocation and with such grant money that the MN Horse Council has available.

 

The Grant Process 

In 2007 the DNR implemented an entirely new approach to how they administer their part of this program for DNR administered properties. Since 2007 the MTRA has been required to deposit our share of the proposed project costs to the DNR up front and the DNR would pay the bills as they were submitted by the parks and forests groups. In the past MTRA paid all of the bills first and then applied for grant reimbursement from the DNR. This means that MTRA is now on the hook to put up all the money before projects are started rather than after the project completion as in the past. Traditionally these projects always take more time than originally planned so we end up operating a couple of years behind. 

County or city administered projects, which we identify as non-DNR, continue to be administered the same as in the past. Once we at the MTRA have approved grant projects for the upcoming year, the project is complete, invoices are sent to us for reimbursement

 

The Matching fund

We use the following year needs assesment to apply for a National Recreation Trail Funding Act Grant (NRTFA) which is a Federal program, but is administered in MN by our DNR. This grant money reimburses MTRA for half the maintenance and improvement project expenses. So if we qualify for a grant, our private dollars are doubled in value by money from Federal non-highway use tax that is allocated to each state).

If you know of project needs that we may not be aware of, be sure and let us know the details , in order that we can include it in the list being considered.  

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