LANSING ? Gov. Jennifer Granholm emphasized to the Delphi Corporation’s top executive on Thursday that the state will do anything to preserve the company’s jobs in Michigan. That action came as state officials try to assess the impact the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing will have on the state.

Long-term, officials don’t know yet what the effect will be on the state, but they know it is unlikely to be good.

There is an initial estimate from the Senate Fiscal Agency that the short-term impact of the company’s bankruptcy could be minimal. The long-term effects will depend on the decisions the company makes on employment numbers in Michigan and on wages.

If, for example, the company did impose 60 percent pay cuts on its hourly workers, in Michigan that could mean a loss of $18 million in income taxes, the memo said.

Granholm met privately with Delphi CEO Steve Miller on Thursday and discussed the bankruptcy as both attended opening of the Hyundai-Kia Tech Center outside Ann Arbor.

According to Liz Boyd, Granholm’s press spokesperson, Granholm told Miller that the state would “do anything, go anywhere at any time” to keep Delphi jobs in the state. Boyd said no other details, including what response Miller made to the governor, would be released.

And officials with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation are setting up a meeting with Delphi executives, said a spokesperson for Granholm.

State Republicans on Thursday eagerly distributed copies of an Indianapolis Star column that praised the efforts of that state’s Governor Mitch Daniels to meet with Delphi officials to keep the company’s Kokomo plant open and draw more production to the state. The column also criticized Granholm’s initial comments on the bankruptcy filing, charging that globalization played a major role in Delphi’s problems.

However, Miller, in comments made to Business Week magazine, listed three main reasons for the company’s financial woes and blamed labor costs driven by globalization and health care costs as the first reason.

The bankruptcy is the largest U.S. auto-related bankruptcy, and the firm employs some 15,000 people in Michigan at its Troy headquarters and in five plants scattered through the state.

The state is anxious to see what Delphi will report to the bankruptcy court as its plan for emerging from bankruptcy, Ms. Boyd said. That plan would likely detail what plants may be closed and what actions the company will take on worker wages.

Shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy, the company said it was seeking pay cuts of as much as 60 percent for hourly workers along with cuts in health care benefits, vacations and other benefits.

Until the restructuring plan is available, it may be premature to speculate what effect the bankruptcy could have on the state, Boyd said.

The memo prepared for Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming) by economist David Zinn also said that, “any significant short-term impacts are likely to be minimal and most short-term and long-term impacts at this time are essentially unknown.”

The Delphi bankruptcy is also the fourth major bankruptcy to hit the state this year, the memo said, following the filings of Northwest Airlines, Collins and Aikman and Tower Automotive.

As with those and other major bankruptcy filings in the state, the effect on the state will depend on the actual decisions the company makes. If the company did impose a cut of 60 percent on wages, then that alone could cost the state $18.3 million just from Delphi workers, the memo said, “ignoring the effect such reductions might have on other businesses.”

Some officials and legislators have speculated on the effect the bankruptcy could have on pending proposed changes to the state’s tax plan, whether to accelerate it to help the company or delay it because of the impact it might have on the state’s budget.

Sikkema said Michigan’s tax structure did not apparently have any bearing on Delphi’s problems, although he also acknowledged it could cause some changes to the plan.

Sikkema said he still plans to move ahead with a tax proposal probably in early November, and is looking at a proposal that would create triggers to generate additional tax savings when specific conditions are met.

With such a plan it would “be almost irrelevant to what happens to Delphi,” Sikkema said.

And Boyd said the bankruptcy filing should be a clarion call to the Legislature to pass the business tax plan Granholm proposed last winter, saying it is a plan designed to help the manufacturing industry.

The memo also points out that state officials expected that manufacturing employment would continue to struggle in the upcoming year, and said Delphi’s situation is “not noticeably inconsistent with current forecast” of economic activity in the state.

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