SPRINGFIELD - A state audit released Thursday criticized Southern Illinois University for giving a local bank the names and addresses of thousands of students enrolled at the Carbondale campus in 2006.

The audit says it's against the rules for Southern to give out the information of students younger than 21 to any organization that gives out credit or debit cards.

The local bank asked for the information through the state's Freedom of Information Act, and the university agreed. It handed over names and addresses of every student enrolled at the Carbondale campus beginning the fall 2006 semester.

Auditor General Bill Holland suggested Southern put in additional controls to make sure an incident didn't happen again. The university agreed, spokesman Rod Sievers said.

Sievers said the information wasn't given to a major credit card company, and that only names and addresses were given out.

"No numbers or social security numbers or anything like that was supplied," he said.

Sievers said the bank wasn't necessarily trying to pitch students credit cards but was instead trying to generally advertise to students who wanted local banking services.

The finding was part of a regular audit released Thursday.

Southern's previous state audit revealed five findings of problems from state auditors, but Thursday's report showed 14. Some dealt with employees not appropriately filling out time sheets to the university not using federal money for its intended purpose.

Mike Riopell can be reached at mike.riopell@lee.net or 789-0865.