An audit released Wednesday by the Office of the State Comptroller found discrepancies between the way officials at State University of New York institutions, including Binghamton University, reported crimes internally and to the state.

The report examined the statistics reported in each school’s Annual Security Report (ASR), which is required under the federal Clery Act, and those reported to the Department of Education between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 21, 2006. Campuses are required to report to the DOE, which then publishes the information on the Web.

Inconsistencies were found in two-thirds of the 28 schools assessed, ranging from minor offenses to more serious crimes and violations, like sexual offenses, burglaries and drug violations, according to a press release from the OSC.

More than 100 discrepancies, consisting of 494 crimes, and 30 discrepancies, made up of 652 disciplinary action referrals, were found by auditors.

“Safety has to come first on college campuses,” State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said in the release. “Accuracy is the key, and some SUNY schools have been inaccurately reporting serious crimes on campus. Not telling the full story on crime won’t make crime disappear.”

The Clery Act, as described in the audit, is a federal statute aimed at giving citizens information about the safety and security of college communities. It was named after a female student who was raped and murdered in her dormitory at Lehigh University in 1986, and requires all public and private colleges to file an ASR.

Auditors visited four SUNY campuses: Stony Brook University, University at Buffalo, Delhi and New Paltz. OSC officials analyzed the findings at all 29 colleges — with the exception of Empire State College, which did not prepare an ASR — and concluded that SUNY officials need to improve the guidance and training authorities receive to more effectively comply with the Clery Act.

“The objectives of our audit were to determine whether the State University of New York’s 29 state-operated campuses are accurately reporting crime statistics and publishing other relevant security and safety-related information,” the document states.

The majority of schools — 19 to be exact, including BU — were found to have 20 or more crimes and violations inconsistently reported from ASR records to the DOE’s Web site, while three schools, Oneonta, Delhi and Cobleskill, had 40 or more discrepancies found.

“The University recognizes that, in performing the audit, the OSC did not seek to assess — and did not assess — whether the University’s campuses were safe,” SUNY spokesman David Henahan said Thursday, adding that the issue focused on the actual reportage of incidents.

Nothing in the report opposes the fact that SUNY campuses provide a “safe environment” for academics, athletics and other areas of student life, according to both Henahan and SUNY’s Assistant Vice Chancellor for University Police Roger Johnson.

Gail Glover, spokeswoman for BU, said that the University didn’t under-report any statistics. Rather, officials reported a crime that was “not required to be included.”

“There is not a discrepancy of 20 crimes between the information printed in the ASR and the Department of Education data,” Glover wrote in an e-mail. “Review of the DOE’s Web site and our ASR for 2006 clearly indicates there there is a discrepancy on only one crime, which was corrected on the DOE’s Web site.”

Glover did not elaborate on the nature of that crime.

Even before the audit’s findings were released, SUNY had taken “system-wide” steps since 2007 to increase compliance with the act, Henahan said, including a full-day workshop, which featured a national expert, the use of a listserv to give staff members a place to ask campus and additional training.

Henahan said that he didn’t think there was an intent to hide the statistics, and that nothing in the audit suggests differently.

In its response to the report, SUNY agreed with the findings, as well as the five recommendations made in the audit.