ADA Website Compliance for Municipalities

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ADA Website Compliance for Municipalities

Home ADA Website Compliance for Municipalities

Is Your City Website Ready for the New ADA Accessibility Deadlines?

The clock is running for municipalities to bring their websites and digital services into compliance with new federal accessibility requirements.

Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s updated ADA Title II web accessibility rule, state and local governments must ensure their websites, mobile applications, and digital content meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards.

For municipalities, the current compliance deadlines are:

April 26, 2027 — Public entities serving populations of 50,000 or more

April 26, 2028 — Public entities serving populations under 50,000 and special district governments

For many cities, meeting these requirements will involve much more than making a few adjustments to the website. Municipal websites can contain hundreds or thousands of pages, years of documents, online forms, third-party services, videos, images, and other content.

If you haven’t already evaluated your city’s digital accessibility, now is the time to find out where you stand.

What Does ADA Website Compliance Actually Involve?

The federal standard for state and local government websites is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

Those guidelines address how people with disabilities, including people who use screen readers, keyboards, magnification software, and other assistive technologies, access and interact with digital information.

Some of the accessibility issues we look for include:

Keyboard accessibility — Can someone navigate the website without using a mouse?

Color contrast — Is text readable for people with low vision or color-vision deficiencies?

Alternative text — Do meaningful images provide appropriate information to screen-reader users?

Page structure — Are headings, lists, tables, and other elements properly structured for assistive technology?

Forms — Are fields properly labeled and can users understand and correct errors?

PDFs and documents — Are agendas, meeting packets, applications, reports, and other documents accessible?

Video and audio — Are appropriate captions and other accessibility features provided?

Navigation — Can users consistently find and access information throughout the site?

Third-party services — Are the external tools residents use to interact with the city accessible?

This is only a sampling of what WCAG 2.1 Level AA covers. The good news is:

We can help.

Start With a Professional Accessibility Audit

Before deciding what needs to be fixed, you need to know what problems actually exist.

St. Mane Digital Consulting can perform a professional accessibility audit of your municipal website and provide a prioritized list of issues, along with practical recommendations for addressing them.

Our audits combine automated accessibility testing with knowledgeable manual review.

Automated accessibility scanners are useful tools, but they cannot determine every accessibility problem. A website can receive a seemingly good automated accessibility score while still presenting significant barriers to someone using assistive technology.

That’s why an effective audit goes further.

We look at how your website is actually built and used, identify accessibility barriers, and help distinguish between isolated content problems and sitewide issues that may be originating from your templates, navigation, website theme, or content management system.

From Audit to Action

Finding accessibility problems is only useful if you know what to do about them.
A lengthy technical report containing hundreds of warnings isn’t much help if your staff doesn’t know where to begin.
Our goal is to give your municipality a clear and manageable path toward compliance.

That means helping you understand:

What needs immediate attention

What problems occur throughout the website

What can be corrected relatively easily

What requires development or programming work

Which documents need remediation

Where third-party systems may present accessibility concerns

What your staff can do differently going forward

Instead of simply telling you that there are problems, we help you determine what to do next.

We Can Work With Your Existing Website Provider

ADA compliance doesn’t necessarily mean replacing your website. St. Mane Consulting can work directly with your municipality, your IT staff, or your existing website provider to help address accessibility issues. Our web development experience allows us to understand both sides of the process: identifying WCAG accessibility problems and understanding the practical work required to correct them. We can provide your existing developer with specific recommendations, assist with remediation ourselves where appropriate, help your staff coordinate the process, or jump in and make the adjustments for you. 

The objective is compliance, not selling you a new website you don't need.

Don't Overlook PDFs, Forms and Everyday Content

One of the biggest accessibility challenges for municipal websites isn’t necessarily the website template. It’s the amount of content that accumulates over time.

Consider how much information a typical city publishes:

Council agendas. Meeting packets. Minutes. Ordinances. Planning documents. Building permits. Applications. Recreation information. Employment information. Public notices. Budgets. Reports. Maps. Forms. Videos.

Accessibility requirements can extend to these materials as well.

Even a technically well-built website can have accessibility problems because of the documents and content being added to it.

That’s why an audit should look at the whole digital experience, not simply the homepage.

And if your municipality operates additional websites or digital properties, such as a separate recreation, municipal utility, community center, or other city-operated sites, those should be included in your accessibility planning as well.

Compliance Doesn't End at the Deadline

Meeting the applicable 2027 or 2028 deadline shouldn’t be viewed as a one-time website project.

Municipal websites change constantly.

Staff members add pages, upload documents, publish images, post meeting materials, create forms, and introduce new online services. Without good accessibility practices, new barriers can appear even after existing problems have been corrected.

We can help your municipality address the issues that exist today and develop practical procedures for maintaining accessibility going forward.

Minnesota-Based ADA Website Expertise

St. Mane Consulting is a Minnesota-based company serving municipalities, businesses, and organizations throughout the Midwest.

We bring extensive experience in website development and digital accessibility to the process, giving us the technical background to identify accessibility problems and the practical experience to help get them corrected.

Whether your municipality needs an initial accessibility assessment, a comprehensive audit, remediation assistance, or help coordinating accessibility improvements with an existing website vendor:

We can help.

The Deadline Is Coming. Start by Finding Out Where You Stand.

April 2027 and April 2028 may seem well in the future, but municipal websites can contain years of content and thousands of potential accessibility issues.

The earlier you understand the scope of the work, the more time you have to prioritize improvements, budget appropriately, coordinate with vendors, and address problems without a last-minute rush.

Let's Talk About Your City's Website

St. Mane Digital Consulting can evaluate your current website, identify accessibility concerns, and help develop a practical roadmap toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance.

Start with a conversation about where your municipality stands today, and what needs to happen before your deadline.

Call Theo St. Mane at 507-261-4541 or contact St. Mane Consulting today to discuss an ADA accessibility audit.

St. Mane Consulting

Minnesota-based. 25 plus years of experience serving municipalities and organizations.
507-261-4541
stmaneconsulting.com

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