Lawrence Journal-World opinion section

Lawrence city commissioners should be careful not to change the city’s economic incentive policy in ways that makes it difficult or impossible for Lawrence to take advantage of special opportunities to create jobs and add to the city’s tax base.

The commission is proposing a number of changes to the policies, including one that would cap tax rebates at 50 percent for 10 years, with some possible exceptions. In a meeting to review the proposed changes, some members of the Economic Development Council of Lawrence and Douglas County expressed concern that such a cap could cause desirable companies to eliminate Lawrence from consideration before the recruitment process even begins.

County Administrator Craig Weinaug is right that local economic development officials shouldn’t mislead potential businesses about the size of incentives they could receive. If city commissioners really won’t consider a tax rebate larger than 50 percent for 10 years, businesses should be told that, but, hopefully, commissioners will decide to draw a less rigid line.

During last year’s election campaign, several current commissioners decried the city’s overuse of tax incentives. At that time, much of the focus was on the tax incentives granted to a number of large residential projects in the city. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of apartments in Lawrence, and providing added incentives for developers to build more apartments admittedly is a questionable strategy.

However, providing incentives to businesses that will create more jobs in Lawrence and contribute to the city’s tax base is another matter. At the same time commission candidates were criticizing the use of tax incentives, they also acknowledged the need to add more local jobs. If, for instance, a major manufacturing business was interested in locating in Lawrence, would commissioners want that firm to cross Lawrence off its list because of an arbitrary cap on the tax incentives that might be available?

In the highly competitive economic development arena, it’s important for Lawrence to remain flexible enough to work with companies that would be strong assets to the community. It might be unusual for commissioners to grant more than a 50 percent tax rebate, but the city needs to be able to respond to an unusual opportunity for Lawrence.