HONOLULU -- A supervisor at Lihue Airport who admitted to stealing thousands of dollars in an embezzlement case has been fired after state transportation officials put her on leave with pay for nearly two months while they investigated the case.

The state transportation director admitted Tuesday what employees have complained about for years: that there's a management problem at Lihue Airport.

Sources told KITV 4 News a business services supervisor at Lihue Airport, who oversees four other people, admitted to stealing about $13,000 from the state over several months. Some of it was money that airline employees, vendors and others pay for annual airport security badges.

The state placed her on leave with pay after she admitted to airport officials in writing to the theft in early July, according to Sidney Hayakawa, an administrative services officer with the state department of transportation.

The woman, who has not yet been charged with a crime, kept collecting her paycheck for nearly two months until she was fired Thursday, he said.

State Sen. Donna Mercado Kim (D-Moanalua, Aiea, Kalihi Valley), who chairs the State Senate ways and means committee, calls that "unbelievable."

"Why would she be put on leave with pay?” Kim asked during a hearing Tuesday at the state capitol.

"Because we wanted her to be available to come back, because we needed to re-interview her. And that's what's happening right now, the AGs have to re-interview her and she was available to them," Hayakawa said.

"You still have to go through an investigation and you have to verify that wrongdoing is evident and had occurred," said State Transportation Director Brennon Morioka, noting that even people who’ve admitted wrongdoing deserve due process.

Airport records show the woman was paid anywhere from $35,000 to $54,000 a year. Hayakawa said officials could have put her on unpaid leave while they investigated, but they chose not to.

Kim questioned what message this sends to the public. "It's OK to steal and if you're found out, you can be put on leave with pay for at least a month and a half," Kim said.

”The message is basically, if you steal, and we catch you, you get discharged and it's turned into a criminal investigation at this point," said Hayakawa, pointing out the DOT has referred the case to the state attorney general’s office for further investigation and prosecution. He said the AG’s office would have to go after the former employee for restitution.

The woman did not challenge her firing and declined her option for a pre-discharge hearing that could have been held Aug. 23.

The woman was a former co-worker of George Crabbe, the Lihue Airport district manager. A background check on her when she was hired three years ago found no criminal convictions on her record, according to Hayakawa.

KITV 4 News found four small claims judgments against the woman since 1998. In one case from 2004, a Kauai court ordered her to pay $360 to Payday Advance of Hawaii. She was ordered to pay three judgments to Kauai Credit Adjusters, worth $137, $329 and $184 respectively.

There are other problems at Lihue airport. It was the only airport in Hawaii to pay security fines to the Transportation Security Administration recently. Lihue paid $75,000 worth of security fines to the TSA for 15 security lapses between March of 2009 and 2010.

"The management at Kauai airport seems to be problematic. And this is just one more, on top of all the issues we've seen on Kauai," Kim said.

In another incident, an airport operations controller frustrated with management at Lihue walked off the job in late 2008 and no one bothered to notify personnel officials to stop his paycheck for weeks, so he was overpaid about $5,000.

Earlier this year, he was allowed to return to work at the airport, keeping the extra $5,000 in overpaid salary and 880 hours of accrued sick leave.

If they could rewind the situation “we would have looked at recouping the money for his salary overpayment,” Morioka said.

"We do know that there can be improvements to the way that we manage the airport in both the facility itself and the employees," said Morioka.

State DOT officials admitted there have been management problems at Lihue Airport for more than two years.

"We are sending people over to go and meet and discuss and coach some of the leadership over there,” Morioka said.

“It seems to me they could do a reality show at Kauai Airport,” said State Sen. Sam Slom (R-Hawaii Kai, Diamond Head, Kahala).

“You can’t really guard against incompetence,” Kim said, noting that no managers have been disciplined for mismanagement at Lihue, in spite of numerous problems.

In another incident, airport manager George Crabbe lost track of two people he was escorting behind security checkpoints on Sept. 11, 2009, resulting in the Lihue airport terminal being evacuated and shut down and passengers re-screened.

That disrupted scheduled flights on Kauai. “In spite of my personal embarrassment of being the cause of the disruption, the alternative of not taking this step to ensure terminal safety would have been worse,” Crabbe wrote in a statement to his superiors at the DOT.

“I take sole responsibility for the events that led to this disruption and I cannot fully express the mortification and regret my momentary lapse of attention caused,” Crabbe said in the statement.