CODY - The Transportation Security Administration is negotiating a lease with Yellowstone Regional Airport officials to operate a training facility for its employees.

Bill Merkel, the TSA's federal security director in western Wyoming, denied newspaper reports Saturday night that the agency had been evicted from the airport until it paid back rent for the space.

He said the airport's board did not direct airport manager Mike Becker to kick TSA staff out of a break room they had been using until the agency's lease was signed and paid for.

"No rent is due. There is no back rent," Merkel said. "Nobody was evicted from anything."

The agency would like to lease a storage room at the airport and convert it into a training room for TSA employees, he said.

Merkel also denied reports that the agency has refused to pay $45 per hour to provide law enforcement officers at the airport.

"We're still negotiating on that and determining what good price would be," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Becker could not be reached for comment.