The Delaware County Board of Commissioners on June 9 approved a request for proposals to review and remediate the county website to meet Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility requirements.

Jane Hawes, the county’s director of communications, told commissioners the work goes beyond the IT department’s current capacity and that the website must meet a technical deadline in April of next year. “We’re up against a deadline of April 20 fourth of next year to make sure that the website is, fully compliant with the ADA act,” Hawes said during the meeting.

Hawes said the remediation likely will include adding descriptive alternative text to images so screen readers can present them verbally, reordering heading and font structure to be logically hierarchical for assistive technologies, and producing screen‑reader‑accessible versions of press releases and documents already used in the county news archive. She said the engineer’s office has a large archive of construction images that will require decisions about how broadly to apply alt text and metadata.

Hawes also said artificial intelligence tools can help populate alt text for large image sets but that the county wants outside expert guidance on scope and quality. Commissioners asked questions about scope and bidding; the board voted on resolution 25‑428 to issue the RFP, with Vice President Jeff Benton and President Barbara Lewis recorded voting “Aye.”

Next steps: County staff will issue the RFP and accept proposals from qualified vendors to perform site audit and remediation work. Hawes said the county will evaluate bidders’ track record and technical approach to ensure the selected firm can meet accessibility standards and the stated deadline.