A shift in strategy this month by the board overseeing the Grow Iowa Values Fund may provide fresh ammunition to critics of the economic development tool as lawmakers return to Des Moines next week for the four-month legislative session.

The new state fund has been in existence less than a year and already is taking fire for seeming to favor companies that move to urban areas of the state.

The decision this month by the board is significant because the fund was used to keep jobs in the state, not bring in new ones.

The Values Fund Board voted Dec. 18 to award $6.6 million to modernize the Lennox Manufacturing production plant in Marshalltown. The facility makes heating and air conditioning parts and employs 1,100 people.

Lennox officials are weighing options to expand in several states, and Iowa needed to make a bid, advocates of the decision said.

If the plant is not modernized, "it puts the future of the facility in doubt," said Kyle Gilley of Lennox International. The board's decision to meet Lennox's full request was "significant," he added.

Whether it saves the jobs remains to be seen. The money was offered on the condition Lennox stays in Marshalltown for 10 years.

The loss of that many jobs would be a body blow to Marshalltown and for central Iowa. The board apparently needed to act quickly

Yet those sorts of impromptu decisions also make us uneasy. The Values Fund Board had no precedent to act on -- only the possibility of lost jobs as its driving force.

Job retention was not the rallying cry when Gov. Tom Vilsack championed the fund. Rather, it was sold as a way to bring new high-skill, high-wage jobs to the state.

However, these types of corporate enticements are standard in luring and keeping businesses. They're a weapon Iowa needs to have in its arsenal if it plans to compete with other states. Whether the Iowa Values Fund is the right vehicle for such a project is something the Legislature needs to clarify.

The board needs criteria as to how to make those decisions, along with safeguards against companies that may try to squeeze the state for money.

Another controversial aspect that may need to be revisited surrounds the urban-rural question. Critics from rural areas have bemoaned the awards benefiting urban areas, especially the Des Moines metropolitan area.

Values Fund money has gone to:

-- A Wells Fargo Home Mortgage expansion in West Des Moines, $10 million; expected to bring in 2,000 jobs.

-- Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center, $9 million.

-- GCommerce, a New York software company that got $1 million for relocating to Des Moines.

We have supported the $500 million Iowa Values Fund, although we have reservations about the dubious nature of the funding mechanism, which relies in later years on untested revenue sources of sales taxes from Internet and catalog purchases.

There is no reason to suggest that recent developments hurt the chances of a Waterloo project that is in the running. The proposed TechWorks center would foster bio-based products and research in downtown Waterloo.

Even so, any statewide fund in Iowa needs to have a sensitivity to the ongoing tug-of-war between rural and urban interests. Programs that are seen to only benefit urban areas won't have much of a future.

One reason Vision Iowa -- the state fund to promote tourism -- has survived is that some money was set aside to benefit smaller communities through its sister program, the Community Attraction and Tourism grants.

With that in mind, perhaps a sister fund aimed at smaller economic development projects around the state would be worth pursuing. If it resolves the issue of equity, it would be money well spent.