Website Accessibility for County Governments: A Practical Guide

County governments provide essential services to residents — property tax payments, court records, public health information, election details, and emergency notifications. When a county website is not accessible, residents with disabilities are cut off from services they need and have a legal right to access.

Under ADA Title II, every county government in the United States must ensure its website meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. Counties serving 50,000+ people must comply by April 24, 2026; those under 50,000 have until April 26, 2027. This guide explains what that means in practice and how to get there without breaking the budget.

Why county websites are especially at risk

County websites tend to accumulate content over many years. Meeting minutes from 2015, budget documents from various departments, GIS mapping tools, permit applications — all of this content falls under the ADA requirement. Unlike a private business that might have a small marketing website, county sites often have thousands of pages and hundreds of PDF documents, many created by different departments with no consistent accessibility standards.

Common risk areas include:

• Scanned PDFs — Board minutes, ordinances, and financial documents scanned as images are completely inaccessible to screen readers.
• Third-party portals — Tax payment systems, permit applications, and court record searches are often provided by third-party vendors. The county is still responsible for their accessibility.
• Legacy CMS templates — Older website templates built before accessibility was a priority often have fundamental navigation and structure issues.
• Maps and GIS tools — Interactive maps are notoriously difficult to make accessible. At minimum, the information conveyed by the map must be available in an alternative format.

A practical compliance roadmap

Phase 1: Assessment (Week 1-2)

Start by understanding the scope of the problem. Run a free accessibility scan on your county homepage to get an immediate baseline. Then identify your most critical pages — the ones residents use most frequently:

• Homepage and main navigation
• Property tax lookup and payment
• Meeting agendas and minutes
• Job applications
• Contact and department directories
• Emergency and public safety information

Phase 2: Critical fixes (Week 3-6)

Focus on the issues that affect the most users and carry the highest legal risk:

• Add alt text to all informational images
• Fix color contrast violations in headers, navigation, and body text
• Add labels to all form inputs
• Ensure keyboard navigation works for menus and interactive elements
• Add a “Skip to main content” link

Phase 3: Documents and content (Week 7-12)

Address your most-accessed PDF documents. For documents that get regular traffic — current year budgets, active ordinances, recent meeting minutes — either recreate them as tagged PDFs or convert them to HTML pages. For archived documents with little traffic, add a notice offering to provide accessible versions on request.

Phase 4: Ongoing monitoring

Accessibility is not a one-time project. New content, staff changes, and CMS updates can reintroduce issues. Set up automated monitoring to catch problems as they appear. An AccessEval Comply plan provides weekly scans, a fix tracking dashboard, and an accessibility statement generator for $299/year — a fraction of what enterprise tools charge.

Communicating with your board

County boards and commissions need to understand this is a federal requirement, not an optional improvement. Key points for your presentation:

• ADA Title II compliance is a legal obligation, not a recommendation
• Non-compliance creates real liability — settlements and resolution agreements typically cost $50,000 to $300,000
• Proactive compliance can be achieved for under $600/year with the right tools
• Documenting your compliance efforts provides significant legal protection

Start today

The first step takes less than two minutes. Scan your county website for free and get a clear picture of where you stand. From there, you can prioritize fixes, present a plan to your board, and begin working toward compliance well before your deadline hits (April 2026 for 50,000+ populations, April 2027 for smaller entities).