A bipartisan 10-bill package has been introduced in the Michigan House related to a proposed Detroit bailout. A link to the concise, objective, plain-English MichiganVotes.org descriptions of all 10 bills is here.

It’s worth noting that the grant (or bailout) bills do not require passage of the reform bills to become law. Also, nothing would prohibit a future Legislature from repealing the reform measures, although in practical terms this could get complicated given that a potential federal court bankruptcy settlement may be all wrapped together with the grant and reforms — if they are approved.

The state money is intended to ease the tough choices the city must make to get relief from its debt and other obligations in federal bankruptcy court. Six of the bills would institute fiscal reform measures for the city. Most notably, one bill would establish a state oversight panel with authority over city budgets, borrowing, union contracts, etc. (House Bill 5566), and another that would end offering defined benefit pensions and post-retirement health insurance to new city employees hired starting in 2015 (subject to current union contracts), instead granting them generous 401(k)-type defined contribution benefits (House Bill 5568).

One reform bill would cap the value of city employee health insurance benefits (House Bill 5569), and another would prohibit any extension of a 10-year Detroit regional arts tax authorized by a 2010 law and 2012 ballot initiative (House Bill 5571).

Four of the bills would enable payment of a state grant to Detroit that many regard as a partial bailout (House Bills 5572 to 5575). Two of these grant bills envision a one-time $195 million up-front payment, while another would authorize state borrowing of $350 million as a means of ensuring future Legislatures follow through on the current Legislature’s commitment to deliver the money in annual $17.5 million installments over 20 years. The value transferred by either approach is about the same — $195 million right now is worth roughly the same as $350 million over 20 years. The Legislature would pick one or the other method, but not both.

People who have downloaded the VoteSpotter app can follow the progress of the package and give feedback to their legislators when votes are taken.

The House Fiscal Agency has posted its detailed summary of the full package here.

(Editor’s note: This commentary first appeared in The Detroit News on May 12, 2014.)

The most radical provision in a ballot proposal to increase the minimum wage is an almost 300 percent increase in personnel costs to Michigan restaurants. The measure would mandate that the cost per tipped employee skyrocket from $2.65 per hour (before tips) to $10.10 per hour.

Notice that is the cost for the employer and not the employee’s wage. Like their name suggests, most of tipped workers’ pay comes from … TIPS! Under both state and federal law, if tips do not make up the difference between the tipped base wage and the regular minimum wage, then employer must pay the rest.

In other words, it is already illegal for tipped employees to make less than the regular minimum wage. This refutes a misleading insinuation being peddled by supporters of the proposed ballot measure that tipped workers only make $2.65 an hour.

While an almost 300 percent base pay hike may sound like a good deal for wait staff and bartenders, it could have a detrimental impact on their actual income. Many, if not most, tipped workers make significantly more than the regular minimum. According to a recent study by the National Restaurant Association, with tips these workers nationwide have a median income between $16 and $22 dollars an hour.

Those amounts could come down in Michigan if the proposed ballot initiative is adopted by voters in November.

This is because higher prices are a very real possibility if the measure passes. According to one restaurant owner, Tim Barr of Art’s Tavern in Glen Arbor, “The only way to counter [the] wage increase will be to increase the price of menu items.”

And those price hikes could rebound against tipped workers. An April 9  Mitchell Research poll of likely voters commissioned by the Mackinac Center found that a majority of respondents would probably tip less if the tipped base wage increase resulted in higher restaurant prices. Some 30 percent said they would tip much less.

Johnny Brann Jr., owner of Brann’s Steakhouse and Kitchen 67 in Grand Rapids, says that under the proposed increase “many people will not tip; (my employees) will make less money.” He reports that his tipped employees are currently making around $20 an hour, and close to $30 on weekends.

Another potential outcome for tipped workers is layoffs and reduced hours. Ed Klimek, owner of Italia Gardens in Oxford, says that “As a small, family-owned restaurant owner barely making it in a struggling economy I will have only one option: Cut shifts and eliminate job positions.”

Scott Parkhurst, an operating partner in a firm that runs 17 restaurants in northern Michigan, predicts that some tipped positions may be changed or simply eliminated. “Restaurants would be more likely to change their business model by becoming buffets or adapting in ways that require less staff.”

Add it up, and the extreme increase in the cost of employing tipped workers probably means some combination of higher menu prices, smaller tips, staff reductions, or tipped jobs converting to lower-opportunity non-tipped positions.

All this would make Michigan’s tipped workers collateral damage in a larger political battleground.

According to a New York Times report late last year, state minimum wage activism is being orchestrated by political operatives in Washington, D.C., who believe stirring this pot will benefit them politically. This despite an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in February that said increasing the national minimum would most likely cost 500,000 jobs, and possibly as many as 1 million.

Back in Michigan, if the proposed ballot initiative becomes law it’s likely that tipped employees will take the largest hit. For many hardworking Michigan wait staff and bartenders, a minimum wage “hike” may very well result in an actual pay cut, or worse.

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F. Vincent Vernuccio is director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich.