Good things will happen … if good things happen.

At least, that’s the idea of a $24,000 taxpayer-funded study about to get under way at Kansas University. The study is designed to show that 5,000 new high-paying jobs in the biosciences industry would be beneficial for Lawrence.

“I think we already know the answer to that,” Douglas County Commissioner Jere McElhaney said Wednesday. “Why do we have to pony up the money for that?”

Because, other officials say, the study will encourage needed local investment to make those 5,000 jobs a reality over the next decade.

“If we can quantify the positive impacts (of biosciences), it will give us the leverage to garner the support we need,” said Lynn Parman, vice president of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.

But the rush to get the study started means it has largely escaped public scrutiny.

Official consensus

The Lawrence City Commission, for example, had minimal discussion Tuesday night before contributing $6,030 for the study. The item was never formally added to the commission agenda, and commissioners were given information on the proposal only that afternoon.

“Everybody seems to agree bioscience is an industry we should be pursuing as part of our economic development,” Mayor David Dunfield said after the meeting.

It’s such consensus that makes the need for the study bewildering to McElhaney.

“All we’ve been hearing about for the last year and a half is biosciences, biosciences and how great that’ll be for the community,” McElhaney said. “I don’t think they need to sell the idea that we need biosciences jobs any more.”

KU and the chamber also have contributed $6,030 each for the study. Monday, the Douglas County Commission will be asked to pitch in.

At the same time, the Legislature is moving closer to approval of a measure that would pony up $500 million in state funds to jump-start a biosciences revolution in Kansas.

Correct numbers?

The local study will be conducted by KU’s Policy Research Institute over three months. It presupposes that 5,000 jobs in Lawrence will become reality, then measures the costs and benefits from there.

But officials with the institute couldn’t exactly say Wednesday why it’s safe to assume that biosciences research would create that many jobs here.

“My impression is that it would be optimistic, but not unrealistic,” said Steven Maynard-Moody, the institute’s director.

Joshua Rosenbloom, director of PRI’s Center for Economic and Business Analysis, referred the question to Parman.

“As far as I know, she is the person from whom I heard that number first,” Rosenbloom said.

Parman, in turn, said the number was based on analysis by the chamber and KU of recent job trends in Lawrence. Those 5,000 jobs may happen “naturally” without the benefit of the state incentive package.

“To some extent, we looked at what was happening naturally and assumed those things that are happening naturally will occur,” Parman said. “It’s easy to see that 5,000 jobs over 10 years is a conservative goal.”

In that case, McElhaney said, the study money might be better spent on other goals.

“Only a very few communities are going to be part of” the expected blooming of biosciences, McElhaney said, “so we have to stay flexible with our economic development.”

The Douglas County Commission is expected to consider the proposal at 8:30 a.m. Monday at the Douglas County Courthouse.