If Proposal 2 were to pass this November, it would cost taxpayers $1.6 billion a year in lost potential savings, according to an analysis done by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

An estimated $1 billion a year of the lost savings would be due to Proposal 2 superseding Gov. Rick Snyder’s mandate that all public sector employees pay at least 20 percent of their health care costs, according to the analysis done by the Mackinac Center's James Hohman and F. Vincent Vernuccio.

"Prop 2, the ‘Protect Our Jobs’ constitutional amendment, would fundamentally change the power structure in Michigan," Vernuccio said in a release. "The increased power it would give unions at the bargaining table could potentially cost taxpayers billions."

The analysis estimated that $312 million a year would be shifted to taxpayers in public school employee pension reform costs and taxpayers would pick up about $300 million annually from the loss of the privatization of school support services.

Dan Lijana, the spokesman for Protect Working Families, which supports the so-called "Protect Our Jobs" proposed amendment, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

One estimate found that if Proposal 2 was adopted, it could impact as many as 170 Michigan laws. But the biggest cost to taxpayers would be via health care.

For example, the Royal Oak School District paid 100 percent of its teachers health care premiums in 2011-12. Once a new contract is approved and all government employees pay 20 percent of their health care costs, the district can expect $894,707 in savings.

"If it (Proposal 2) passes, the sky is the limit on future contract negotiations as well," said Charles Owens, the Michigan director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "Unions are well aware they could collectively bargain anything they want. And if they get it, there is nothing anyone can do about it, even if it is unsustainable."

Eight years after the city of Pontiac spent $8 million renovating a theater that city officials say never reopened, the city sold it to a developer for $135,000.

Pontiac Emergency Manager Louis Schimmel said the deal is expected to be completed within two weeks.

City documents show the theater, which was sold as part of the city’s plan to cut expenses, was projected to cost the city about $135,000 in 2012-13. The theater opened in 1921 and has been owned by the city since 1986. The sale price of $135,000 was more than the appraised value of the theater, said Joseph Sobota, the city's director of the Department of Community Development.

A 2004 city of Pontiac financial report said $10 million was planned on renovating the theater. Sobota said the renovations cost $8 million.

Schimmel, who was appointed as the city's emergency financial manager in September 2011, said he saw the theater recently and couldn't see much of a benefit for the millions that were spent on renovations.

"It doesn't look like they spent $100,000, let alone $8 million," Schimmel said. "How the money was spent was hard to see."

Leon Drolet, chairman of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, said there should be an investigation into how the $8 million was spent.

"If this happened in your house, if you paid millions of dollars on upgrades you couldn't find, you would be suing the renovator," Drolet said. "The problem is there is no one who does that when government is involved. There is no accountability when government rips you off. No one is evaluated or held accountable for wasted funds. The only show that keeps going on is the rip off of taxpayers. That is the show that never closes."

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See also:

City Has Been Paying $10,000 A Month To Light Vacant Garage

Before Emergency Manager, Pontiac Had 87 Different Health Plans

Pontiac Turnaround Stories: City Versus Schools

Proposal 1: Referendum on the Emergency Manager Law