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Committee considers bill to post agency rules in accessible, searchable formats; disability advocate urges technical standards
Summary
Senate Bill 55 would require agencies to post their rules online in digitally accessible and searchable formats. The lieutenant governor’s office filed comments; a disability advocate told the committee the bill lacks a definition of “accessible” and urged alignment with Title II of the ADA and concrete file‑format standards.
Senate Bill 55, which would require state agencies to make the text of administrative rules available online in digitally accessible and searchable formats, drew written support from disability‑rights advocates and civic groups and a late in‑person comment from an accessibility expert.
Michelle Greenhart Klein, speaking for the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, said the office would “stand on our written testimony and comment,” noting technical and implementation considerations. Peter Fritz, an individual with a disability and a trainer on accessible documents, testified in the hearing’s final minutes after earlier technical problems.
Fritz told senators the bill uses the terms “accessible” and “searchable” without defining them in Hawaii law and that compliance should follow accepted federal standards. “The fact is, is that they'd have to comply with Title II of the ADA, which does have those standards,” Fritz said. He explained that a PDF can be OCR‑searchable but still lack the tagging that assistive software uses to navigate documents, and that scanned agency files he reviewed had been posted without OCR or tagging.
Fritz urged the committee to require standards that ensure documents are machine‑readable and navigable by screen readers and offered to provide examples from other states. Senators asked to work with him and agency staff on drafting amendments; committee members indicated willingness to receive comparative language (for example, Florida statutes) to clarify minimum accessibility requirements. The committee deferred final action to its decision meeting on Jan. 30, 2025.
The discussion highlighted two recurring implementation issues: whether posting alone satisfies accessibility goals if files are not tagged for assistive technologies, and whether the current state workflow (signed PDFs scanned and posted) produces accessible files without additional steps such as e‑signatures and export from source documents.
No vote was taken; the measure will return to the committee for decision making.
