County eyes CivicPlus tools to meet DOJ website and PDF accessibility guidance

IT and records staff told the board that recent DOJ guidance and WCAG 2.2 standards require the county to make website documents readable by assistive technologies and that doing so manually would be staff-intensive. Staff recommended two vendor solutions: a document-conversion service (Doc Access) that converts PDFs and image documents into accessible text and an accessibility-monitoring tool similar to AudioEye that scans and reports problematic pages.

IT staff said Doc Access would cost about $9,860 in the first year and the monitoring service about $6,200 per year; both are recurring subscription services. "If we were to try to spend staff time, it would be probably the entire IT department and several people from other departments," staff said, arguing the vendor services reduce internal labor demands.

Commissioners discussed budget options and the department’s recommendation that the purchase be placed in the technology or IT budget; one commissioner said they would engage the congressional delegation about federal guidance that creates new local costs. Staff noted that some discounting applied because the county already uses CivicPlus products.

Why it matters: New DOJ/WCAG guidance tightens accessibility requirements for government web content and PDFs; counties face both compliance timelines and recurring costs for vendor services or substantial staff time if handled in-house.

Next steps: Staff will work with the county administrative officer on funding and procurement and return with contract documents and funding recommendations.