Administrator Michael Brown said Tuesday that a Dec. 15 mediation session between the county and Barry County Courthouse Employees Association was a good one, which left three options: agree, set another meeting or, if at an impasse, go to fact finding.

Another mediation session near the end of January will be set when the mediator is available, Brown said. Under a provision to re-open the contract in 2016 to address wages, the two sides held one negotiation session and then went to mediation.

The main sticking point in the negotiations with the courthouse union is the county not implementing a pay study contracted for by commissioners, which recommends, among other things, a 13 percent pay boost across the board to put Barry County employees in line with surrounding entities that were used for comparison.

The implementation cost for the courthouse union employees would be $483,591; full implementation for all employees included in the study, courthouse union, non-represented and department heads, is $758,212, according to Brown.