Community College Safety Reporting (2015-MS-2)

Issued Date
August 28, 2015

[read complete report - pdf]

We also released five letter reports to the following community colleges: Fulton Montgomery [pdf], Genesee County [pdf], Herkimer County [pdf], Niagara County [pdf], and Rockland [pdf].


Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to assess community colleges’ compliance with safety reporting requirements established under the Clery Act for the period January 1 through December 31, 2013.

Background

The Clery Act requires all public and private colleges participating in Federal Title IV student financial aid programs to prepare, publish and distribute an Annual Security Report (ASR) disclosing information about college safety policies, procedures and crime statistics. Colleges must disclose statistics for reported Clery Act crimes that occur on campus, on public property within or immediately adjacent to the campus, and in or on non-campus buildings or property that the college owns or controls. Colleges must make the ASR available to current students and employees by October 1 of each year. Additionally, colleges must maintain and make publicly available a daily crime log and must submit crime statistics to the United States Department of Education (DOE) annually.

Key Findings

  • None of the community colleges fully complied with the Clery Act by publishing all of the required campus security policy and procedure statements or meeting all of the required reporting requirements.
  • Each of the colleges had inaccurately reported crimes in its ASR and to DOE.
  • Herkimer and Niagara published ASRs with crime statistics that did not match the statistics they reported to DOE.
  • Fulton could not support it had distributed the ASR in accordance with the law.

Key Recommendations

  • Include all required policy and procedure statements and reporting requirements in the college’s ASR to comply with the annual security reporting requirements.
  • Ensure all Clery reportable crimes, appropriate crime categories and geographic locations are included and used when reporting crime statistics in the ASR.
  • Ensure the college’s ASR crime statistics are consistent with the crimes reported to DOE.
  • Ensure the ASR is distributed in accordance with the Clery Act.