Tax breaks granted to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America are set to expire this year, but the organization’s chief executive said Tuesday that played no role in its decision to look for a new home.

The association’s 10-year, 50 percent property tax abatement on its west Lawrence building is scheduled to expire at the end of the year, chief executive Steve Mona said, but that wasn’t a factor in a vote of members last weekend to begin looking for a new host city.

“We have had a lot of discussions about our future over the last 18 months, but that factor was never brought up even once,” he said. “It had absolutely zero impact.”

In 1992 city commissioners approved a 50 percent tax abatement for $3 million in improvements and $500,000 in machinery and equipment for the association’s offices at 1421 Research Park Drive.

According to city documents, the abatement saved the company about $27,000 in taxes during 2001. Mona said the 22,000-member organization has annual revenues of about $18 million.

If the association moves, it would be the second company to recently announce plans to close its Lawrence operations in the final year of a tax abatement. Earlier this year, Davol Inc. announced it was closing it Lawrence plant. It has a 50 percent tax abatement on $4.2 million in land and $1.4 million in equipment. Those breaks expire Dec. 31.

Mona, though, said nobody should think the association was trying to shortchange the city.

“The city has been really fair to us, and we think we have held up our end of the deal, too,” Mona said. “We’ve created more jobs than we said we would, and I believe we’re well above the average salary, too.”

With about 120 employees now, the association has created 33 more jobs than it said it would in 1992 when it applied for the abatement, and pays an average salary of $42,904, according to city documents.

On Monday, Mona said the association soon would begin seeking proposals from communities interested in luring the organization’s headquarters away from Lawrence. He said the association’s board also would consider remaining in Lawrence.

Kirk McClure, a member of the city’s Public Incentives Review Committee and an opponent of tax abatements, said he doubted the abatement played a role in the company’s decision to start shopping. But he said it should show city leaders that tax abatements generally don’t influence the decisions of companies to either stay in a community or come to a community.

“The city incorrectly believes property taxes influence a company’s decision of where to locate a business,” McClure said. “They just don’t.”