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County approves Doc Access purchase to make PDFs and archives ADA‑compliant
Summary
Faced with expanded web accessibility requirements that take effect April 24, the committee approved a prorated Doc Access implementation (CivicPlus product) to process and remediate archived PDFs and help meet WCAG requirements; cost for the remainder of the fiscal year was $15,424.77.
Eaton County leaders approved a pro‑rated license to a document‑access platform (Doc Access) April 15 to remediate archived PDFs, caption video, and address other Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) requirements the county must meet.
Public and governmental affairs director Logan told the committee the Department of Justice‑backed accessibility expectations coming into effect require many PDFs and scanned documents to be made accessible, add obligations for captioning archived videos, and raise social‑media accessibility questions. Logan said the county’s existing archive includes scanned PDFs and documents without alternate text that would fail automated accessibility scanning.
"This is the best bet and we met with CivicPlus on this. This is a platform called Doc Access . . . It will take every PDF linked within our archive and everything else, make it fully accessible," Logan said, asking the committee to approve a prorated purchase to cover the remainder of the fiscal year. Committee members discussed alternatives, long‑term staffing and the risk of litigation; the committee approved the $15,424.77 budget amendment to implement the platform now and reassess procurement for year two.
What’s next: county staff will use Doc Access to remediate existing PDFs and will continue department‑level cleanup and creation of accessible documents. Staff also planned a cross‑departmental accessibility lead and further training.
