A more than year-long legal battle between the Cass County government and its labor union over an employee’s termination appears to be coming to a head this week.

Cass County leaders and representatives with the Cass County Independent Employees Association (CCIEA) went before a judge with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) in Lansing Monday in regards to the dismissal of former county employee Debra Troche, who was laid off by the county shortly after the passage of the 2015 budget in August 2014. The two parties are scheduled to go before the state arbitration commission again on Tuesday.

Prior to her dismissal, Troche had been employed as office manager in the county administrator’s office. When developing the budget for his office for the upcoming year last summer, County Administrator Roger Fraser eliminated funding for Troche’s position as a cost-cutting measure, said Cass County Board of Commissioners Chair Bernie Williamson.

“You don’t cut the kind of money we needed to by cutting out spending on pencils, paper and paperclips…we needed to consolidate some positions,” Williamson said.

The county commissioners later voted, in a 5-2 decision, to restore the funding for the position prior to passing the county budget; however, Fraser laid off Troche shortly thereafter. Following Troche’s termination, the CCIEA filed an unfair labor practice claim against the county on her behalf, Williamson said.

The ensuing legal battle has caused the county to rack up quite the bill in attorney fees, spending more than $100,000 up to this point — which has given some commissioners cause for concern.

During the last board of commissioners meeting on Nov. 5, the board voted in a 4-3 decision to proceed with litigation before MERC this week, with commissioners Robert Wagel, Skip Dyes and Roseann Marchetti all voting against continuing the legal battle.

“Why we’re pursuing this, I don’t know,” Marchetti said. “There are so many other things we could be doing with our time and money.”

Chair Williamson was among the four leaders who voted to proceed with the legal hearings. While unable to comment of the specifics of their case, Williamson echoed the argument made by Commissioner Clark Cobb during the board’s last meeting, that most of the money devoted toward the resolving this issue has already been spent and that they should follow the case through to the end, she said.

“We’re at the 11th hour,” she said. “These hearings will determine the outcome of the case. To stop short of it now, everything that we spent up to this point would be thrown out the window, because we would not have learned anything from it.”

The Daily News has reached out to CCIEA President Tina Butler for comment.