The City of Madison’s Office of the Independent Police Monitor released a form to monitor Madison Police through public input. Madison residents and police officers can fill out this confidential form to provide input on the Madison Police Department, City of Madison Independent Police Monitor Robin Copley said.

The office can use this form to understand relations between MPD and residents, and how the implementation of policies is affecting Madison residents, Copley said.

This form will allow the public to share their interactions with the OIM, Copley said. Residents can include specific information on the form, including the date and location of issues they encountered with MPD.

The OIM does not have much authority and jurisdiction over the Madison police department, however, it does provide another perspective on the relations between MPD and Madison’s residents. A lot of the jurisdiction over officers relies on state entities, rather than city entities, District 8 Alder MGR Govindarajan said.

By receiving input from the public, the OIM can narrow down areas within MPD policy and procedures that may need to be reevaluated. From there, Copley said those areas are revised to have an equitable outcome across the community.

“What we’re looking for is, not only a perspective, but what we really want is to help the public,” Copley said. “The only way that we can do that is by finding out what is going wrong, and what is going right as well.”

The form itself was designed by the Police Civilian Oversight Board Complaint Process Subcommittee last year, Copley said. But, earlier this year MPD signed a data-sharing agreement called Memorandum of Understanding, which allowed for the release of the form.

The OIM did not want to start receiving intake forms without a full staff and strategy for processing the forms, Copley said. But, since filling their last open position earlier this fall, the office was able to release the new police monitoring form.

With the upcoming Nov. 5 election, the OIM is going to be greatly impacted depending on the City of Madison referendum outcome, Copley said.

If the referendum fails, $270,000 will be cut from the OIM, along with one staffing position. If the referendum passes, only $50,000 will be cut, MGR said.

Passing the referendum would restore funding to the OIM, but if it fails, Copley claims that would be the end of the funding for the office.

“The much more hopeful idea is that the referendum passes, and that there will be an amendment to the budget that would come before the Common Counsel, which would restore our funding,” Copley said. “I have only seen two years of this, but it has been a decades-long process, and it is frustrating to think about it all being turned off at the end of the year just as we have started full operation.”