COEUR d'ALENE - A recent audit of the Coeur d'Alene Airport's billing system revealed a number of issues which cost the county roughly $11,000 in write-offs Thursday.

County Clerk Jim Brannon said the audit uncovered almost $39,000 worth of bills the county failed to issue to airport tenants in the past few years - some as far back as 2008.

In the past, airport staff negotiated lease agreements with tenants at the airport, and the auditor's office billed the tenants and collected payment.

The audit showed that in some cases, increases on five-year lease renewals were not added to the bills, and several tenants were never billed for sewer fees.

The audit caught 27 cases where the county had to back-bill tenants. And while the county has already collected 65 percent of the back payments, commissioners met Thursday to discuss how to proceed with collection from the remaining nine tenants, who still owe a combined $12,549.

Commissioners ultimately decided to collect $893 from the Hagadone Corp. (which also owns The Press), and $361 from Lowry, Rodriguez and Campbell.

In the case of Hagadone, the county neglected to bill the corporation for January, February and March 2013. Hagadone has paid for two of those months, but disputed the January payment because its records show it made a payment.

The county auditor's office claims the disputed payment was applied to the corporation's December 2012 lease payment.

The LRC case involved an increase in that company's lease rate which was agreed to in 2008, but was never changed on the customer's bill.

Commissioners decided to continue working with those two companies to resolve their issues, but also to write off the rest of the debts.

The commissioners wanted to focus on a new system for collecting lease payments.

"This is just sloppy bookkeeping," said Commissioner Dan Green. "At this point, let's just write it off and move forward to correct these processes."

Commissioner Todd Tondee agreed, saying he's fine with writing off the debt as long as the commission learns from this.

Commissioner Jai Nelson wondered why the county was sending out monthly invoices to the tenants.

"I have property I lease and I don't ever send out a bill," she said, adding that the county shouldn't have to do that, either.

The other commissioners agreed. They instructed airport staff and the auditor's department to develop a system for collecting the lease and sewer payments without invoicing, and set a goal for launching that system by Jan. 1, 2015.