(a) The Commission established the Texas Heritage Trails Program and, with the Texas Department of Transportation's cooperation, adopted the state's ten Texas Travel Trails to divide Texas into ten Heritage Trail Regions (Texas Brazos Trail Region, Texas Forest Trail Region, Texas Forts Trail Region, Texas Hill Country Trail Region, Texas Independence Trail Region, Texas Lakes Trail Region, Texas Mountain Trail Region, Texas Pecos Trail Region, Texas Plains Trail Region, and Texas Tropical Trail Region).
(b) The THTP is a program of the Commission and permission to participate in the program is granted to regional organizations by action of the Commission and may be revoked by the Commission in its sole discretion at any time.
(c) The Commission may approve a regional organization to represent and operate under the name of their respective region as determined by the Commission. No more than one nonprofit entity shall be approved for any one region; however, the Commission may approve a nonprofit entity to represent more than one region. The entity must retain its Texas and Internal Revenue Service nonprofit status in good standing for the duration of program participation.
(d) The Commission shall establish and maintain heritage tourism principles, vision, mission, values, goals, and strategies for the purposes of this chapter that regional organizations participating in the program shall follow.
(e) The Commission may enter into a Contract with one or more participating regional organizations to provide financial assistance per §30.5(a) of this chapter (relating to Texas Heritage Trail Program Operations). Each contract must clearly establish:
  (1) the role of the nonprofit organization in promoting heritage tourism;
  (2) the nature of the relationship between the commission and the nonprofit organization;
  (3) the performance expectations for the nonprofit organization;
  (4) requirements and expectations regarding the nonprofit organization's employees;
  (5) the commission's expectations regarding ownership of any literature, media, or other products developed or produced by the nonprofit organization to promote heritage tourism during the course of the contract;
  (6) the commission's long-term goals for the program and the nonprofit organization's role in meeting those goals;
  (7) a system for evaluating the nonprofit organization's overall performance, including the organization's effectiveness in meeting the performance expectations described by subsection (d) of this section; and
  (8) the types of support, other than financial support, the commission will provide to the nonprofit organization to assist in the implementation and administration of the Texas Heritage Trails Program.

Source Note: The provisions of this §30.3 adopted to be effective March 4, 2019, 44 TexReg 1120; amended to be effective October 31, 2019, 44 TexReg 6362