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Digital accessibility is not just a best practice—it’s the law. Recent updates to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mean that municipal, township, and school websites must comply with strict standards, ensuring equal access for everyone, including people with disabilities. These changes may feel complex, but the benefits—legal compliance, inclusion, better service delivery—are well worth it.

Why Digital Accessibility Matters

• Legal Requirement: ADA Title II now requires all state and local governments, including townships and municipalities, to make websites and mobile apps accessible to people with disabilities. The compliance deadlines are April 24, 2026, for large entities and April 26, 2027, for smaller governments (under 50,000 population).​
• Universal Impact: Web accessibility benefits people with various disabilities—vision, hearing, movement, cognitive—and everyone who uses websites on mobile devices, with slow internet, or faces situational challenges like aging or injury. Making a website accessible means removing barriers to essential public resources.​

Key ADA Standards and Deadlines

• WCAG 2.1, Level AA Compliance: The Department of Justice (DOJ) specifies that websites and mobile apps must meet the technical standard known as WCAG 2.1, Level AA. This includes captions for videos, alt text for images, keyboard navigation, and readable text contrast.​
  • Learn about the technical standard here: ADA Small Entity Compliance Guide
  • Review the WCAG standard: W3C Accessibility Fundamentals
• Contracts and Outsourcing: Governments are responsible for ensuring contractors or outside vendors comply with accessibility requirements. If you hire a company to design your township site, their work must meet ADA standards.​
• Exceptions: There are defined exceptions (e.g., archived content, legacy documents, some third-party content), but most current public information must be fully accessible. Details on exceptions: ADA Guide Exceptions

What Barriers Look Like—and How to Solve Them

• Barriers: Missing alt text on images, non-captioned videos, inaccessible PDFs, forms that can’t be completed with a keyboard, links and buttons that don’t work for screen readers—all these can prevent people from accessing information.​
• Solutions: Early evaluation, accessible design templates, staff training, assigning accessibility tasks, regular testing, and ongoing updates are essential steps.
  • See how users with disabilities engage with web content: How People Use the Web

Step-by-Step: Achieving ADA Compliance

1. Build Skills and Train Staff: Develop accessibility awareness in your team—train everyone from content creators to web developers. Include accessibility when hiring new staff.​ Build Skills and Expertise
2. Create Processes and Assign Tasks: Integrate accessibility checks in publishing and procurement. Assign clear responsibilities for ADA compliance.
3. Evaluate and Update: Test websites regularly for compliance and track progress. Involve users with disabilities for real-world feedback.
4. Respond to Requests: Make it easy for the public to report accessibility issues and request accommodations. Policies and public contact info: ADA.gov Main Site
5. Remediate PDFs and Documents: Remediation is required for documents used in any public-facing program or service. For complex PDFs, slides, or forms, seek professional remediation. (Guello Marketing offers PDF remediation services) 

Why It’s Important, Even When It’s Challenging

Complying with the new ADA rules can be daunting for small townships, municipalities, and schools. The regulations are detailed, and remediating legacy content (especially old PDFs and forms) takes expert effort. However, compliance protects your organization from legal risk, supports residents and families, and builds a reputation for inclusion.

That’s where Guello Marketing comes in: Our team removes the complexity and hassle from ADA compliance and PDF remediation for government entities, townships, municipalities, and schools. From accessible website redesigns to complete ADA compliant rebuilds to full PDF document remediation, we do the heavy lifting so your staff can focus on serving your community.

Important Links for More Information

• ADA Small Entity Compliance Guide
• W3C Accessibility Introduction
• Build Skills and Expertise
• How People Use the Web
• ADA.gov Main Site

If you’re ready to make your government, township, municipality, or school website ADA compliant with PDF Remediation for 2025 and beyond, Guello Marketing is here to help—bringing clarity, solutions, and exceptional service to every project.