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City updates council on digital accessibility push, to pilot AI remediation tool
Summary
Bellingham staff told council they are working toward DOJ/WCAG compliance with an April 2026 deadline, auditing thousands of PDFs and testing an AI-driven tool (Doc Access) to automate PDF remediation while keeping Equidox for high‑sensitivity documents. Staff emphasized training, procurement updates and remaining challenges for video/audio accessibility.
City communications and ADA staff updated the Bellingham City Council Committee of the Whole on a year‑long effort to bring the city's publicly available digital services into compliance with the Department of Justice’s Title II web accessibility standards.
"We're coming up against this deadline next month," ADA Coordinator Holly Peterson told council, noting the DOJ's April 2024 final rule for Title II (applying WCAG 2.1 AA technical standards) and a compliance deadline that depends on jurisdiction size. Because Bellingham exceeds 50,000 residents, staff said the city is working to meet the earlier deadline.
City staff summarized an accessibility audit that included more than 9,000 PDFs and over 140 online PDF forms; staff said they have removed roughly 2,000 outdated PDFs during website cleanup. Remedies include procurement language for accessible software, improved staff training, website scanning tools (Siteimprove) to identify issues and remediation tools for PDFs. Staff described Equidox, a manual remediation product, but said manual remediation is staff‑intensive — an 800‑page council packet could require dozens of staff hours to remediate.
To reduce that burden, communications staff said the city is entering a one‑year pilot contract to test Doc Access, an AI‑driven remediation tool that provides an on‑page accessible transcript and image descriptions. Communications Director Melissa Morren said in testing Doc Access produced accessible outputs at a fraction of the staff time and cost: "With Doc Access, the cost was $134" in their test sample versus more than $1,100 in staff time to remediate the same documents. Staff will continue to use Equidox for legally sensitive or public‑safety documents.
Councilors asked how staff will handle charts and color‑coded visuals, how AI errors will affect compliance, and what happens if the city is found out of compliance. Staff said they are preparing best‑practice toolkits for presentations and graphics (including patterns and labels in addition to color), that compliance is measured against WCAG 2.1 AA not perfection of a tool, and that grievances/complaints are handled through the city's ADA complaint process. Holly Peterson noted that for some multimedia — live meetings, recorded video and social platforms — the technical solutions and vendor capabilities are still evolving and will require additional decisions.
Staff emphasized ongoing training and monitoring rather than a one‑time fix; the work program includes site scans, remediation workflows, new procurement terms and public outreach for accessibility concerns. Staff directed residents with accessibility concerns to the city's accessibility web page for contact information and grievance procedures.
