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Cass County adopts Doc Access contract to meet digital accessibility mandate
Summary
Facing an unfunded federal accessibility mandate, the commission approved a one-year contract with Doc Access to auto-remediate PDFs and website content for accessibility, with staff noting the vendor is more expensive but reduces manual remediation workload and that the county will re-evaluate vendor options next year.
Cass County voted to enter a one-year contract with Doc Access to automatically remediate PDFs and other website documents to meet a federal digital-accessibility requirement affecting jurisdictions with populations above 50,000.
County staff said the contract leverages OCR and automated remediation to convert documents into screen-reader–friendly HTML and that, unlike other vendors they reviewed, Doc Access performs automatic remediation rather than only flagging issues for manual correction. "This Doc Access takes care of all that automatic remediation," said Mr. Solom, adding that the vendor is more expensive but reduces the county’s manual workload.
Staff emphasized the county will continue training and template improvements for department document authors, and that the contract is one year with a plan to reassess alternatives next year. The commission approved the contract and agreed to make the necessary budget adjustment to reflect the unbudgeted expense.
County leaders said adopting a remediation solution now positions Cass County as a state leader in meeting digital-accessibility obligations while acknowledging some manual follow-up will remain.
