Enhance Resources and Support For County Compliance with Web-Based Accessibility Standards

ACTION NEEDED:

Urge your Members of Congress to explore legislative solutions and resources to support local compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Final Rule titled Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Disability: Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities. The Final Rule provides a compliance deadline by which county websites, mobile applications, digital services and social media accounts must be compliant with technical accessibility standards outlined in the Final Rule. All counties with a population above 50,000 must be compliant by April 26, 2026, and counties with a population below 50,000 must be compliant by April 26, 2027.

BACKGROUND:

In April of 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a Final Rule titled Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Disability: Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities. The Final Rule outlines technical standards developed by the Web Content Accessibilities Guidelines (WCAG) organizing body that must be met by county governments in order to be considered compliant with the Final Rule. The DOJ determined that the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard would be sufficient to meet the goals of the rulemaking, and counties have sought to familiarize themselves with the complexity of the Final Rule, seek staff time and resources to strategize and remediate affected assets, test and deploy solutions, and establish feedback loops to determine efficacy in solutions.

The Final Rule estimates the total cost to comply is approximately $1 billion nationwide; however, many counties have reported that this estimate is lower than actual costs. The compliance timeline also has not allowed for counties to fully budget for the remediation and compliance costs, which are unfunded by the federal government. Legislative solutions and resources for counties to help assist with compliance would allow counties a greater opportunity to meet compliance deadlines and achieve the important goal of increased accessibility for county residents.

KEY TALKING POINTS:

• Counties fully support the goals of web-based accessibility, and seek the technical assistance, funding support and additional resources necessary to achieve this goal in a feasible and effective manner.
• The cost and complexity of the Final Rule has proved challenging for county governments to fully comply, and additional support will ensure web-based accessibility is possible for all state and local government entities.