The package originated in the state House and was approved along party lines with several amendments last week by the Senate. House officials said the chamber is expected to consider the Senate’s amendments and hopefully send the bill to Gov. Rick Snyder for his approval this week.

But controversy has ensued since the package’s inception because of the broad authority the legislation would grant financial managers, including the ability to abolish labor and other contracts held by a community. The bill also would, under certain circumstances, permit the abolishment of local units of government, a stipulation detractors say frays the fabric of democracy.

“I think it’s a very bad bill,” said state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing. “This is not good government.”

The legislation is mirrored after a 1990 law that allows intervention by the state in instances of government corruption and insolvency. That law, Meadows said, provided adequate state assistance to communities despite the Republican majority’s claim that the status quo was not holding water.

But the new legislation’s proponents say Michigan communities’ financial troubles necessitate an update to the law, which would be repealed and replaced should the latest legislation become law.

State Rep. Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, said negative reaction to the legislation has been overblown by the media. Pscholka, who sponsored the package’s primary bill regarding the financial managers, said the legislation is a way of helping communities avoid needing such a manager.

That option, he said, would be a last resort.

Because the legislation calls, among other things, for preliminary reviews and recovery plans to be drafted by state officials and local communities, detractors’ harrowing portrayals of the bills are inaccurate, Pscholka said.

“This is the lifeline before bankruptcy,” he said. “If we don’t do this, then the alternative is … bankruptcy. This gives you the opportunity to bargain and make some changes beforehand.”

The bills appear to be on the track toward becoming law, as Snyder in January said he views such legislation as necessary to accomplish his goal of righting Michigan’s foundering economy.

For their part, East Lansing officials do not plan to focus much on the possible impacts of the financial manager legislation, city councilmember Nathan Triplett said.

At a meeting last week, members of the East Lansing City Council laid out legislative priorities for the coming year. The financial manager legislation is not an area it will focus on, Triplett said, because matters of more immediate importance take precedent.

One such issue is that of statutory revenue sharing, or money given to communities from the state by law in exchange for the ability to collect gas, sales and other taxes. Snyder last month proposed to eliminate nearly $200 million in statutory revenue sharing for the next fiscal year.

The move could cost East Lansing as much as $1.8 million, something officials have said will be detrimental to the city. What’s more, evaporating revenue sharing also is being brought up as an issue with the financial manager bill, because a number of communities say they could face financial insolvency should those funds dry up.

“As an individual, I have serious concerns about the legislation that’s been proposed,” Triplett said, acknowledging city officials as a group decided to take no formal stance. “I think that it is something we should all be concerned about.”