Douglas County taxpayers will be asked to pay $15,000 to update a study that rates the value of granting tax breaks to businesses looking to expand or establish roots in Lawrence.

The Lawrence-Douglas County Economic Development Board is asking the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission to split the cost of the $15,000 update. The project would revamp some of the base assumptions of the cost-benefit model that is used to estimate whether a company’s request for a property-tax abatement would pay off for the community.

Such tax breaks can play a key role in a company’s decision to consider a community for an expansion or relocation project. And with millions of dollars at stake, and the potential for dozens of new jobs and other development on the line, board members want to make sure that the existing computer model — established in 1990 — continues to be reliable.

“The decisions that we make are too important to base on information that is five, 10 or 15 years out of date,” said Charles Jones, chairman of the County Commission and member of the board.

The budget request will be forwarded to city and county officials in April, to be considered as part of both commissions’ budget deliberations this summer. If approved, the money would become available Jan. 1.

“I certainly would strongly encourage it and support it,” Mayor Mike Rundle said.

At issue is the way the computer model treats certain data when a company applies for a tax break. Of particular concern to economic development officials is the way the model looks at the perceived costs and benefits of new jobs.

Using information gleaned from surveys of employers in 1990, the model actually penalizes a company for promising high-paying jobs, said Lynn Parman, vice president for economic development at the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.

Parman recalls running the numbers on a project that would have brought 60 new jobs, each paying an average of $60,000.

The eventual “cost-benefit ratio” — the numerical conclusions that government officials often rely upon when deciding whether to approve a tax break — actually improved as the wage levels decreased, Parman said. That’s because the computer model incorrectly assumed that such high-paying jobs would require the company to recruit workers from outside of the county.

Today, Parman said, biotechnology companies and other employers can count on the Lawrence area’s educated and skilled work force to fill the bulk of such high-paying jobs.

“It could hinder our economic-development efforts in the future if we don’t have a cost-benefit analysis that is … accurate,” Parman said.

Kansas University’s Policy Research Institute, which developed and maintains the computer model for the city and county, would conduct the review and enact whatever changes are sought. No adjustments would be ordered until other groups, including the city’s Public Incentives Review Committee, had a chance to review their own goals and assumptions about how the formula should work.