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Henderson County approves CivicPlus website overhaul, social‑media archiving to meet DOJ ADA rule
Summary
Commissioners unanimously approved a CivicPlus contract to rebuild the county website, add PDF/ADA checks and begin archiving official social‑media pages to comply with a Department of Justice website accessibility rule the court said must be met by April 2026.
Henderson County Commissioners Court voted unanimously to authorize a contract with CivicPlus for a county website rebuild, ADA/PDF accessibility checking and social‑media archiving.
At a presentation to the court, Mr. Brock described the CivicPlus package as a ground‑up rebuild of the county’s website that will include automated PDF accessibility checks, tools to identify missing accessibility metadata and the addition of social‑media archiving for county pages. Brock said the county plans to begin work early next year and was “looking in February” for an initial rollout, stressing that the effort aims to meet a Department of Justice ADA website compliance rule that the court said requires local governments of this size to be in compliance by April 2026.
The contract, which the court approved with authorization for the County Judge to sign, was described by staff as offering the same baseline cost as the county’s current vendor but including additional products — notably social‑media archiving (the first year described as included) and a PDF checking tool. Brock told commissioners the vendor will assist with relinking older documents, help clear and reindex legacy files and produce reports to guide corrections.
Commissioners and staff discussed implementation details: the rebuild is intended to preserve the site’s look and navigation while updating backend accessibility features; judicial record searches and certain third‑party links will remain relinked to existing vendor platforms (identified in the meeting as TAO Technologies for judicial‑search services). Brock acknowledged the county will need to iterate through link checks and content relinking and that some pages — notably detailed maps — may not be fully resolvable to exact ADA standards but will be documented and supported through a county contact for accessibility issues.
The court approved the contract by motion (Commissioner Richardson moved; second recorded on the record) and the vote passed unanimously.
The county identified the Department of Justice website ADA compliance rule as the driver for the work; the court emphasized the decision was aimed at making government information accessible to people with disabilities and at ensuring social‑media posts are retained for public‑records purposes.
