Opening up the delicate question of how much help the State of Michigan ought to provide its ailing largest city, state leaders are weighing whether to devote hundreds of millions of dollars to help spare the pensions of Detroit retirees, while also saving the city’s prized art collection from the risk of sale in bankruptcy.

Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who is expected to seek re-election this fall, raised the prospect of state financing with legislators in closed-door meetings this week. Details of the proposal, including the precise source of the money, are in flux. But one option would be for Michigan to provide $300 million to $400 million over several decades, according to people with knowledge of the meetings who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of privacy rules surrounding mediation talks in Detroit’s bankruptcy case.

The state money would augment an effort by private foundations, which have pledged to pool $330 million to help cover part of the city’s underfunded pensions and relieve the city-owned Detroit Institute of Arts of its responsibility to sell some of its collection. Detroit’s pensions are underfunded, by some estimates, by $3.5 billion, leaving them at risk of being reduced in bankruptcy court.

But given Detroit’s deadlines for its bankruptcy proceedings in court, state lawmakers will have a relatively short time — perhaps only a few weeks — to ponder the idea. And the issue is fraught with political complication. The Michigan Legislature, dominated in both chambers by Republicans and also facing elections this year, has shown little interest during an election year in providing anything that might be perceived as a bailout for Detroit, a Democratic-leaning city that has had a long slide into financial crisis.