Even with extended deadline, online ADA requirements create challenges for cities

Adaptive technology, like the screen reader seen here, are essential for those with visual impairment to navigate online spaces. However, many government websites are not built to suite this technology and, as a result, can make it difficult for those with disabilities to access vital services, ranging from public libraries to parks and recreation programming to police departments and even participating in local government meetings. New changes to online spaces for local governments under Title II of the ADA seek to remedy these concerns and make municipal websites, mobile apps, and social media sites more accessible for all residents. (Photo by the National Council on Aging)

By KATE COIL

TT&C Assistant Editor

While the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has extended deadlines for government websites to meet new compliance requirements under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), state and local leaders across Tennessee are working together to ensure all citizens have access to digital information.

Digital ADA Compliance — The four key goals for the new digital ADA compliance for government spaces online include ensuring all content is perceiveable, operable, understandable, and robust for use by assistive technology. This includes technology designed to assist with reading, navigation, and other types of access. (Photo by Adobe)

The revision has given municipal governments with populations of 50,000 or more until April 26, 2027, and those with less until April 26, 2028, to meet the stipulations. The standards of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) laid forth in the original rule remain in place.

How governments can best comply with the ruling was the subject of a panel discussion at the Tennessee Digital Government Summit in Nashville. Brentwood Technology Director Sarah VanWormer, Tennessee Department of Disability and Aging Digital Accessibility Coordinator Alexandria Eddings, and Tennessee Enterprise Project Management Office Senior Enterprise Project Director April Romero discussed implementation ahead of the new deadline.

Romero said it is important to keep in focus that the rule is intended to provide accessibility to the 1.7 million Tennesseans living with a disability and the growing population of senior citizens who increasingly need similar accommodation.

“If you think back to before COVID, someone who needed services would get someone to drive them to a state or local facility and take them in to get services,” Romero said. “During COVID when offices closed, imagine what that did to those Tennesseans who might not have the capabilities or didn’t have some to help them with online accessibility.”

LOCAL CHALLENGES

While Brentwood is a city with a larger IT department than many, VanWormer said it can still be difficult for her staff to support the city’s 19 municipal departments. However, VanWormer said she is fortunate to have a team, because many small municipalities either have a single IT employee or outsource this work.

“This is a very big lift for one-person shops,” she said. “It’s expensive, very hard to do, and many of these one-person shops are still trying to upgrade servers that are 12 years old."

One constant VanWormer said with many municipal IT officials is concern that compliance requires more money and more staff or time than they can currently allot.

How to implement ADA Compliance on Your Website — Numerous free websites and services are offering accessibility audits that can help officials discern what changes they need to make, both technical and visuual, to meet with the new standards. Cities may also want to work with local residents with accessibility needs to help guide the process. (Photo by Bluehost).

“One of the challenges I think we will see in Tennessee for local governments is the budget isn’t there and we don’t have the person power to do this sort of thing,” she said. “We also now have to go to our boards and say we need a lot of money to meet all these new obligations. One of the challenges we face as local governments is getting the funding in place and the people in place for these changes.”

To help with the issue, VanWormer said she and a dozen other municipal IT directors have created a roundtable that provides networking, expertise, resources, and support to help guide cities through these new obligations.

“One of the things we’ve started doing is asking each other what they need or what we can help with,” she said. “It may also be different from different perspectives how you get that budget or person power in place. It’s such a big task, and it’s hard to figure out when to start – especially when you have 56 other hours a week you have to spend on other things. There is so much value in having a network of people who can come in and help when things go bad. That network doesn’t cost you anything but time and energy.”

VanWormer also suggested municipalities should look at the free tools available online to help with the compliance process to achieve some easy successes.

STARTING THE PROCESS

When the state began readying for compliance, Romero said she brought together a steering committee comprised of legal officials, communications personnel from each department, and members of the state’s IT department.

She advised that local governments might want to create an “ADA champion” from each department who communicates between that main steering committee and their department and provides input.

Assistive technology — Despite the challenges, the ultimate goal of the rule is to make government information accessible for all, especially those most vulnerable populations. As America's population ages, it is expected more Americans than ever will require assistive technology - such as screen readers. (Photo by Open Replay)

Romero said funding was another major concern on the state level. As they were waiting for funding, Romero said state officials created a roadmap to be in a better position when funding came through.

“The first step of that roadmap was to get training, and there is a lot of training out there that is free to agencies. Learn as much as you can about compliance. Our second step was to get our ADA agency champions to learn who is sitting at the table in their agency, so they can know who they need to deliver that information immediately. The third step was pulling all of our contracts and reviewing the ADA language in all those contracts. You need to know what your contracts state now and what kind of language they need. We then created an inventory of all our online presences, and fifth was to get analytics. These first five steps can all be done without money.”

Romero also networked with officials in technology departments and ADA coordinators for other states to see what they were doing on a similar statewide level. Tennessee created a digital accessibility coordinator modeled on other states because those states seemed to be ahead of the curve in compliance.

Eddings was hired into that coordinator position and said she came to the role from a user-focused background in the private and government sectors.

“In that line of work, your goal is making things easier to use and more efficient. In the private sector, accessibility is looked on as an investment. If your product is easier for people with disabilities to use, that opens your product up to a broader market. Accessibility also isn’t just for people with disabilities. Things that benefit those with disabilities benefit everyone across the board. Our end-users are the people of the state of Tennessee.”

In addition to citizens using online services, Eddings said it is also essential that employees who have to implement accessibility changes, or be mindful of accessibility in what they post online, are given guidance on how to do so.

“A key user group is state agencies and state employees, because not only are we working on making our products accessible, we have also focused on what those processes look like in order to make those products accessible. That has to be achievable for the people who need to implement these procedures into their workflow. They need guidance that breaks that down into plain language they understand. They need to know what accessibility looks like in the role they have, whether that it is as a designer, procurement, or in IT.”

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES

The ruling is the first to set nationwide technical standards for state and local governments and the first ruling on the ADA in digital spaces. It applies to any websites, mobile apps, and social media sites operated by or on behalf of local governments, public schools, public libraries, municipal courts, and any municipal police and parks and recreation departments. For example, an outside developer designing a town website must comply with the design standards set forth in the DOJ ruling.

Eddings recognized the process can seem overwhelming, but it can be helpful to review the guidelines, break down the guidelines into more manageable segments, and handle the most important pieces first. Eddings said those most important are:

Websites
Social media content
Online documents
Public live-streamed meetings

Additionally, Eddings said governments can use this time to audit spaces they have online, such as knowing how many websites, social media accounts and profiles, or apps the city manages.

“One thing with Title II is that, if certain criteria is met, you may not be required to remediate,” she said. “You can then archive those things. There may be other things you can delete completely. You can help streamline your content and delete clutter online. You can also potentially reduce the amount of remediation you have to do if you are getting rid of anything you aren’t obligated to have. That can make the workload significantly more manageable. What is left after you delete or archive is what you focus on.”

Eddings said it is essential to also remember there are actual human beings on the other end of the compliance requirement.

“You have to keep it grounded in empathy and human-centered,” she said. “It’s not checking a box for compliance; we’re doing this because it’s centered in people.”

Anyone interested in joining the IT roundtable can contact VanWormer at sarah.vanwormer@brentwoodtn.gov.