Governments’ website accessibility deadline is fast approaching

In just over a month’s time, governments with populations of 50,000 people or more must have their websites be accessible and comply with a section of federal disability law.

By April 30, government agencies must be in compliance with a new rule issued in 2024 under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act that says websites must comply with various internationally recognized standards from the World Wide Web Consortium.

The rule was introduced during former President Joe Biden’s administration and has not since been repealed or tweaked by President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice. Experts, therefore, do not expect any changes between now and the implementation date, and they have seen not only a growing awareness of the rule but a growing willingness to get the work done.

“What was universal [based on prior conversations with government leaders], regardless of municipality size, regardless of the type of government worker, was this is important,” said Brenden Elwood, vice president of market research at local government software company CivicPlus. “We need to do this anyway. There was some appreciation, if you will, that this was coming down from the top to force municipalities’ hands to be thinking about what they need to do for the betterment of their communities."

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, known as WCAG, set various accessibility standards and obligations for websites, including that they be easily navigable; be available in portrait and landscape orientation; provide services like text captions for audio and video; add alternative text for images; and allow users to resize text. Websites must be completely usable with just a keyboard and not be designed to provoke seizures or physical reactions.

Previously, the Department of Justice estimated that the price tag for compliance would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide as governments would need to bring existing pages up to compliance and ensure new pages fit the standards. Alarm bells were ringing after separate research from CivicPlus, nonprofit research group CivicPulse, and web accessibility software company AudioEye last year found that government websites were littered with issues.

The need to get in compliance prompted various groups, including the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, to issue guidelines for government leaders and call for more federal funding to help them hit their deadlines. And that push came as various surveys found that residents placed a high value on website accessibility, especially as many government services rely on being available online. That has further piqued elected officials’ interest, Elwood said.

“When they become aware that this is something that the community should be doing, they think it's more important, that should be important for any local government leader, because that's a reputational thing,” he said. “You're an elected official, you get into this line of work for public service, and disenfranchising a certain member of your community just because you don't have the right technology doesn't make sense in today's day and age. Residents are fully aware of that, and they are supportive of those investments, and rightfully so.”

It is unclear how the DOJ will enforce compliance with this rule. Department spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment, but observers have speculated on what it could look like.

At a session hosted during the National Association of Secretaries of State’s Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. earlier this year, NASS Executive Director Leslie Reynolds said she thought the DOJ will have a specific focus when it comes to enforcement, at least initially. Reynolds added that the DOJ had been invited to discuss enforcement during that session, but said they “weren’t ready to come and talk.”

“They're going to focus on the civil rights aspect of this, so they're going to focus on schools, libraries, transit agencies, election offices and health and human service agencies, I think, are going to be the ones that they focus on first,” Reynolds said. She has noted that, in the past, DOJ has come out with settlement agreements, corrective action plans and monitoring periods for similar mandates, which could follow here too.

Mike Paciello, AudioEye’s chief accessibility officer, said he has received a similarly noncommittal response from the DOJ on how they plan to enforce this rule. He said that there is “plenty of precedent” on what to expect given previous ADA enforcement, however.

“It's usually complaint driven,” Paciello said. “Yes, there will be those ambulance chasers, but I think judges are savvy to that, and as long as the municipality is responsive and demonstrates good faith efforts to be responsive and put the right things in motion, I think courts will see that.”

The compliance deadline is longer, too, for governments with less than 50,000 residents, which have another year to meet requirements. Paciello said their work is well underway too, although they must battle with having fewer resources to make sure they’re up to snuff.

“It gives them an opportunity to balance out their efforts, to choose the right people, the right tech staff to advise them accordingly, to address what their residents and what their citizens need,” he said.