Legislative Council staff shifts accessibility work from costly PDF remediation to HTML and application fixes; committee recommends budget

Legislative Council staff told the Joint Technology Committee on an IT budget request that it has reduced projected document-remediation costs dramatically and is shifting effort and funding toward making public-facing applications accessible.

The change comes as staff reported finding a lower-cost vendor for PDF remediation and a larger strategic shift toward converting frequently updated documents to HTML and prioritizing remediation for high‑traffic applications. "It never stops," Manish Jani, legislative council staff, said of rising IT demand as he outlined the request.

The shift reduced one vendor-based estimate that previously approached $931,000, staff said, though different slides presented multiple year-to-year figures: Manish Jani reported a lowered per-page vendor cost that brought some remediation estimates "to just under $110,000," while Natalie Castle, Director of Legislative Council staff, said the department now expects to spend about $256,000 this fiscal year on document remediation and is asking to roll any unused funds into the next fiscal year.

Why it matters: the legislature is required to make digital services and documents accessible under the…