The city and county could be required to keep paying for a unique package of economic development incentives, even if Deciphera Pharmaceuticals moves its operations to another Kansas city.

Attorneys and others involved in crafting the deal confirmed those details on Friday.

Lavern Squier, president and chief executive officer of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, and City Manager David Corliss agreed that the city, county, Douglas County Development Inc. and the Lawrence-Douglas County Biosciences Authority would be obligated to pay $1.5 million of a $3 million grant even if the company moves out of the city.

The grant is being administered by the Kansas Biosciences Authority. The KBA is providing Deciphera with $3 million to purchase and improve a vacant building in the East Hills Business Park. The building will be used as the headquarters for the startup drug development company, and also will include significant laboratory space.

The Lawrence organizations have agreed to repay KBA for $1.5 million of the grant. The documents that were approved Tuesday without much public discussion included a clause that the local groups will be responsible for repaying the $1.5 million – over a 10-year period – as long as Deciphera remains in the state of Kansas. In other words, the company could move to Johnson County, and the local groups would still be required to repay the KBA.

“It is not the desirable result, but it is still palatable because we’ll have the improvements that have been made to that building, and it should be a desirable building to attract business to the community,” Corliss said.

More details also became available about the tax rebate program commissioners approved as part of the deal. Squier confirmed that the Lawrence school district will not be losing any tax dollars as a result of the rebate program. Instead, the district will be able to keep its share of the taxes that Deciphera pays.

But that means that the city, the county, Douglas Development Inc. and the local biosciences authority, will contribute additional money to make up for the school district keeping its full share of the Deciphera taxes.

How much the local groups will have to pay as part of the rebate program, however, is not known. That is because the program sets a cap on how much Deciphera will pay in property taxes during any given year. It does not set a cap on how much the local group will rebate in taxes. The amount of taxes owed on the building can’t be known until area governments set their mill levies and the county appraiser sets the assessed value for the building each year.

Tax abatements also are open-ended commitments, but they usually do not involve local governments spending actual money out of their checkbooks. Instead, they usually involve forgoing future tax revenues.

City commissioners, though, have said they believe the property tax rebate program will cost less than $1 million over its 10-year life. That would keep the total local portion of the incentives package at or below $3 million, which commissioners have said they are comfortable with.