While Mayor O’Reilly’s salary stayed relatively the same — his gross income increased by $500 in 2011 from the previous year, seven top administrations saw their gross income increase by 8 percent to 12.8 percent from 2010 to 2011.

Those pay increases came when the city’s General Fund had a structural budget deficit of $8.6 million for fiscal year 2011. Not all of the city of Dearborn’s workers were as fortunate.  

“When they’re pushing tax hikes, residents hear a lot from local government officials about ‘shared sacrifice,’ ” said Jack McHugh, the legislative analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “These figures give the appearance that the sharing stops at the City Hall door.”

Some of the city's key officials saw considerable boosts in pay:

Matthew Zalewski, an attorney for the city of Dearborn, said gross earnings included things such as mileage, annual longevity checks (yearly bonuses paid to long-time employees) as well as some employees “selling” vacation days offered in the city’s cafeteria benefit plan.

City of Dearborn employees don’t pay anything for health insurance until later this year. Two unions have filed a lawsuit to prevent Gov. Rick Snyder’s law that required public employers to pay no more than 80 percent of the annual cost of medical benefits from taking effect until their contract with their insurance companies expires at the end of June.

Mary Laundroche, spokeswoman for the city, said the top administrators are appointed positions by the mayor and are not in a union and do not receive overtime.But Laundroche said the annual raises for the appointed positions mirror any increases the union gets. So when those union contracts were settled, retroactive payments were made to the top administrators as well as the union members.

In a June 2011 letter included in the city’s budget, Mayor O’Reilly told Dearborn’s citizens, “we know the kinds of sacrifices you’ve made to weather these difficult times in your own households. Like you we’re continuing to seek cutbacks including personal sacrifices from the entire City workforce.”

Mayor O’Reilly then stated the city was raising the millage rate to the legal limit and would ask to raise that limit by putting it on the November 2011 ballot.

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Editor's Note: This story was corrected to say that Dearborn Mayor John O'Reilly asked to raise the millage rate on the November 2011 ballot, not November 2012 as previously reported. Voters approved that ballot measure.

A bill introduced in the Michigan Legislature would outlaw death threats against public officials or their immediate family members. But even before it was formally introduced, questions arose: Why just public officials? Why not everyone?

Public officials are defined in Senate Bill 943 as the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, directors of state executive branch principal departments, members of the state Legislature, and justices and judges of the state judiciary. People elected or appointed to these posts but not yet serving are included as well.

Sen. Darwin Booher, R-Evart, the bill sponsor, defends limiting the scope of the bill to public officials. He argues that threatening a public official could potentially have a wider impact than making such threats against other individuals.

“The way I see it, when these kinds of threats take place it potentially impacts the democratic process,” he said. “We're elected to represent the people of our districts. Death threats — maybe not so much against the officials themselves as against their family members — could cause someone to alter how they vote on legislation or how they perform other duties.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Bieda, D-Warren, said it's ironic that arguments are being made to limit the scope of the legislation to just public officials.

“I believe there's good intent behind the bill,” Sen. Bieda said. “I plan on keeping an open mind as this goes through the committee process. That said; I do think it's little bit ironic that some of the Republican Senators who spoke out against enumerating specific individuals in the anti-bullying bill, now seem to be enumerating who would be covered in this bill.”

Last year, Sen. Bieda offered an amendment to anti-bullying legislation that would have specifically mentioned gay and transgendered students when the measure moved through the Senate. Republicans voted down the amendment, arguing that the anti-bullying legislation should cover all students and specific types of students should not be singled out.

Anti-bullying legislation was eventually passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder. The law requires school districts to adopt policies that ban all bullying against all students for any reason.

Sen. Bieda said one of the things he'll be watching if the death-threat legislation moves forward, is whether statutes already exist that would cover such situations.

Sen. Booher said there is no state law that prohibits someone from directing death threats to public officials. The issue came to light for him last year after someone made death threats to him and other officials after contentious debate about labor legislation.

“After the individual who had made the threats was located, law enforcement officials said there was no law against making these threats under which they could prosecute,” Sen. Booher said. “That's the reason I believe this legislation is needed. There is a federal law that covers officials at that level. Why shouldn't we have one that covers state officials?”

Senate Bill 943 only pertains to threats made “with the intent of retaliating for carrying out the duties of his or her public office.”

Still, questions about its necessity persist. What about people holding other positions of responsibility in the public and private sectors, such as bankers, financial advisers and others?

Senate Bill 943 is not specifically limited to death threats. Threat is defined in the legislation as “any form of communication that would place the public official or his or her immediate family in reasonable apprehension of immediate or future bodily harm."

The definition of “immediate family” includes: a spouse, parent, sibling, child, grandchild, or another person for whom the public official is considered the legal parent, or any other individual living in the public official's household and related to him or her by blood or marriage.

A first offense would be a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both. A second (or subsequent) offense would be a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than $5,000, or both.

The bill has been assigned to the Senate Government Operations Committee.