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Montgomery Township approves new website host to meet DOJ accessibility requirements
Summary
The board authorized the township manager to sign a contract with GHD Digital for Govstack after staff said the current CMS will be discontinued and Department of Justice guidance requires WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility. Implementation is estimated at $21,272 with annual CMS fees and monitoring costs noted.
Montgomery Township supervisors on March 23 authorized the township manager to execute a contract with GHD Digital for the Govstack municipal content-management system to replace the township’s expiring website host and to meet web accessibility requirements.
The change follows notice that the current CMS vendor will discontinue services; staff said the Department of Justice is requiring state and local governments to ensure website content meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility. Ava Komas, the staff project lead, told the board the selection process examined nine vendors and recommended Govstack "because of its straightforward front-end usability, digital accessibility, design flexibility, back-end functionality, IT infrastructure, security, and customer feedback." She added the vendor hosts sites in Microsoft Azure with data stored in the continental U.S.
Why it matters: staff said adopting an accessible CMS will improve resident access to agendas, minutes and online services, reduce the risk of civil-rights complaints and improve records organization. Komas said the consultant and vendor approach also allows the township to build an accessible site from the start rather than retrofitting older content.
Details: staff presented a one-time implementation estimate of $21,272 for migration, forms and CMS implementation; an annual CMS/media subscription cost of roughly $8,878; and an accessibility monitoring and remediation contract estimated at $12,160 (remediation proposed on a two‑year engagement, with the possibility of bringing remediation in‑house later). The team estimated the initial project will take about 29 weeks from kickoff.
Board members asked about language translation, ASL/captioning and whether social scheduling tools could integrate with the CMS. Komas said translation options and AI add-ons exist but would be evaluated and could require additional budget; she said Govstack provides built-in accessibility features and that staff would pursue answers about translation and captioning in follow-up.
The board voted to authorize the township manager to execute the agreement with GHD Digital for Govstack and to proceed with the implementation plan.
Next steps: staff will finalize the contract, begin vendor onboarding and work through the migration timeline; accessibility remediation work will commence per the recommended monitoring plan.
