Turns out 2005 wasn’t as rough on the Lawrence construction industry as previously thought.

Builders, contractors and others involved in the industry took out permits for $131.3 million worth of work last year, up from $117.7 million a year earlier.

The 2005 total is up from the $78 million that mistakenly had been disclosed a week earlier.

A software glitch left three months of data – September, October and November – off reports compiled by the city’s Department of Neighborhood Resources.

The omissions had left the impression that the city’s building trades had suffered through their worst year since 1992, when in reality such business saw an increase of nearly 12 percent from 2004.

“There was a computer error from a software conversion when we did an upgrade to our system,” said Barry Walthall, the city’s code enforcement manager, who oversees building permits. “Some of our data didn’t transfer properly.”

While many builders still regard 2005 as a down year – the city recorded its fewest single-family home starts in 17 years – the updated market total confirmed what Walthall already had concluded: “It’s not a horrible year.”

The earlier report had shown that the city had recorded only 156 permits for single-family homes in 2005, which would have been the worst since 1982. The updated report showed that the actual number last year was 232, down from 313 a year earlier and the lowest total since 1989, when 227 single-family permits were issued.

Also confirmed by the corrected report:

¢ There were 2,711 permits issued last year, down from 2,785 in 2004.

¢ There were 33 permits issued for new businesses, up from 21 in 2004.