It’s understandable that Lawrence officials might want to support a nonprofit agency’s effort to create several new jobs and provide a much-needed service in the community. However, helping Midland Care Connection pay for a fire sprinkler system at a building it is considering purchasing in North Lawrence would set a tricky precedent.

Midland Care has a contract to purchase a property at 319 Perry that would allow it to expand its hospice and adult day care services in Lawrence. The new facility, Midland officials say, would allow them to serve about 40 additional clients and add eight to 10 new employees.

However, after negotiating a purchase price Midland officials learned that the building would need about $400,000 in improvements to meet their needs, about double what they had estimated. As part of their effort to offset that increase, they have approached city officials seeking $25,000 to help them pay for installation of a fire sprinkler system, including an upgraded water line to the property.

Both Midland’s letter to the city and the city manager’s notes on Tuesday’s City Commission agenda refer to the $250,000 budgeted by the city in 2007 to pay for a Downtown Fire Sprinkler Incentive Program. The specific purpose of that program was to encourage downtown businesses to install fire sprinklers that could prevent the catastrophic spread of a fire through Lawrence’s historic downtown.

The city has expended most of that money, and isn’t accepting new applications for what is left. However, even if some of that money remained, it wouldn’t be appropriate to spend it outside the downtown district. It was intended to address a specific community risk, not to provide fire sprinklers to any local business that needs them.

Midland is proposing a nice investment that would provide beneficial services and new jobs. If the city would like to contribute $25,000 to support that effort, it would be more appropriate to offer that support on the basis of its economic development benefits. That would require a different city analysis, but it would avoid a risky precedent that could trigger requests from businesses throughout the community for help paying for fire suppression systems.

Twenty-five thousand dollars may be a reasonable investment in an agency that wants to improve a local property and provide eight to 10 new jobs, but that investment shouldn’t be justified as part of a fire suppression program that was never intended to reach outside downtown.