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IT director warns of federal ADA web-accessibility deadline; proposes $300,000 start to overhaul county website
Summary
Director Isaac Badu told Commissioners Court the county27s website and public portals are not fully ADA-compliant and cited a DOJ deadline for jurisdictions above 50,000 population; he proposed a multi-phase project with an initial $300,000 allocation and listed growing software-maintenance costs.
Isaac Badu, director of Information Technology Services, told Commissioners Court on June 25 the county27s website and public-access portals contain accessibility gaps and that federal guidance will require agencies serving more than 50,000 people to meet web content accessibility guidelines by April 2026.
Badu said an external review and internal checks show the county site contains non-OCR scanned documents, inconsistent file naming and structural issues that prevent screen readers and assistive technologies from correctly rendering content. He gave a live demonstration showing how a PDF on the site reads poorly for a nonvisual user and said that even file-naming conventions (e.g., file numbers rather than descriptive titles) degrade accessibility.
"Now there is a mandate for us to be compliant by April of 20 26," Badu told the court. He said the rule stems from Department of Justice enforcement under ADA web-accessibility guidance and that the county is not eligible for the extra 2027 extension available to jurisdictions under 50,000 population.
Badu proposed an initial, phased budget approach beginning with a $300,000 allocation to start an RFP and vendor engagement, content remediation, staff training across departments and site redesign work. He stressed the project would be larger than a vendor redesign: departments must standardize how they publish documents and staff must be trained to produce accessible content. County counsel and disability-rights representatives have already been engaged, he said.
The IT budget discussion also highlighted increases in recurring software maintenance contracts. Badu said the county27s software-maintenance line rose about 11.3% year over year and that some contracts (Microsoft, Tyler products) account for the majority of the rise. He listed other capital and operational items in the IT budget, including planned VXrail capacity expansion (additional nodes for virtualization), a video surveillance server replacement, network backbone work to create a true ring for resilience, and the need for additional BGP-capable gateway routers to improve internet failover.
Badu also requested staff and consultant positions tied to audiovisual, security camera and door-control systems, and said he is exploring consolidating printer contracts to a per-page service rather than maintaining many in-house devices.
Commissioners asked about scope and timing; Badu said the $300,000 was a starting point to procure services and begin remediation and that he would return with a detailed plan and RFP timeline. Disability-rights attorney Danette Vaughn (present in a meeting earlier that day) and other participants emphasized the county27s existing incremental progress but urged a firm plan and funding to meet the federal deadline.
What’s next: Badu will prepare scope and procurement steps for the website/accessibility project and return with a costed plan for commissioners to consider as part of FY26 capital and operating budgets.
