ADA Title II · WCAG 2.1 Level AA · WordPress
Your website now has a federal deadline.
State and local government websites must meet WCAG 2.1 AA under the ADA. Larger entities by April 26, 2027, everyone else by April 26, 2028. A senior WordPress developer reviews your site for free and tells you what has to change.
Written findings, not a sales call. Nothing changes on your site until you say so.
Compliance date
April 26, 2027
Countdown running
Public entities with a total population of 50,000 or more, plus state agencies and public universities
Compliance date
April 26, 2028
Countdown running
Public entities under 50,000 and every special district government, regardless of size
Who the rule covers
Every state and local government. The only variable is the date.
The Department of Justice's rule under Title II of the ADA sets one standard, WCAG 2.1 Level AA, for web content and mobile apps that public entities provide or make available.
Covered
- Cities, towns, townships and counties
- Public school districts, charter districts and boards of education
- Community colleges and state universities
- Public libraries and library districts
- Water, sewer, fire, park, hospital, housing and transit districts
- Courts, police departments and state agencies
- Anything a vendor provides on a public entity's behalf: bill pay, permits, the LMS
“Provides or makes available” is the phrase that catches people. The utility bill-pay portal, the meeting video on a streaming vendor, the LMS: if residents reach it through you to deal with you, the rule treats it as yours.
How your date is decided
- Cities, towns and counties
- The 2020 decennial Census. Fifty thousand or more residents means the 2027 date; fewer means 2028.
- Departments of a larger government
- A city library or county clerk uses the population of the government it belongs to.
- Independent school districts
- The Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates for the district. Most fall under 50,000.
- State agencies and public universities
- The state's population, which is always over 50,000, so the 2027 date.
- Special district governments
- No Census population, so the 2028 date regardless of size.
April 26, 2027 at 50,000 or more. April 26, 2028 under that, and for every special district.
Not sure which date is yours, or what your vendors owe you? The review answers both, in writing.
WCAG 2.1 Level AA, in plain words
What the standard asks of a WordPress site.
Fifty success criteria, but on a WordPress site they come down to nine things, and most of them are set once in the theme.
Text you can read
1.4.3, 1.4.11Body text at 4.5:1 contrast, large text and icons at 3:1. Grey-on-white and gold-on-cream are the usual failures, and they are set once in the theme.
Works without a mouse
2.1.1, 2.4.7Every menu, form, slider and modal reachable and usable with the Tab key, with a visible focus ring. Hover-only dropdowns fail.
Images explained
1.1.1Alt text on every meaningful image, none on decoration. A flyer posted as a JPEG needs its full text somewhere a screen reader can read.
Forms that say what they want
3.3.1, 3.3.2, 4.1.2A real label on each field, instructions before the mistake, errors announced and explained. Placeholder text is not a label.
Captions on video
1.2.2, 1.2.4Accurate captions on recorded video and live captions on streams. Uncorrected auto-captions on a council meeting rarely pass.
PDFs that are documents, not pictures
1.1.1, 1.3.1, 2.4.2Tagged, with a reading order, headings, alt text and a title. Scanned agendas fail outright; most exported ones need tags added.
Structure a screen reader can follow
1.3.1, 2.4.6, 3.1.1One H1, headings in order, lists as lists, tables with headers, the page language declared. Page builders break this constantly.
Nothing that moves without permission
2.2.2, 2.3.1Sliders, tickers and animations can be paused, stopped or hidden. Nothing flashes more than three times a second.
Fits any screen, any zoom
1.4.4, 1.4.10Text scales to 200 percent and the page reflows at 320 pixels wide without sideways scrolling. Fixed-width layouts and image-of-text banners fail.
Want to know which of the nine your site fails, and on which pages? That is what the review is.
The five exceptions
Narrower than they sound.
Each one has a condition that puts most of what a public entity posts right back inside the rule.
- 1
Archived web content
Only if it was created before the compliance date, is kept for reference or record-keeping, sits in a clearly labelled archive, and has not been changed since it was archived. Last month's agenda on the main page is not an archive.
- 2
Pre-existing documents
Word, PDF, spreadsheet and presentation files posted before the compliance date. The exception ends the moment a resident needs the document to apply for, access or take part in a service.
- 3
Third-party content
Posts by members of the public, like comments. Content from a vendor or contractor you have an arrangement with is not third-party content; it is yours.
- 4
Individualized, password-protected documents
A specific person's bill, report card or account statement behind a login. The portal that serves it is not exempt.
- 5
Pre-existing social media posts
Posts made before the compliance date. Everything you post after it, including what you embed on your site, has to meet the standard.
The review sorts your content into covered and exempt, page by page and document by document, so nobody has to guess.
The free review
Three steps, no meeting, no charge.
A written review you can forward to the board, the clerk or the IT director, from a developer who fixes this for a living.
Send the address
Your site's URL and an email. That is the whole form. A senior developer replies within 2 business hours to confirm what the review will cover, including any vendor portals you link to.
We test it against WCAG 2.1 AA
An automated scan of every page, then a developer works the pages the public uses most (home, alerts, agendas, forms, payments) with only a keyboard and with a screen reader. A scanner catches the mechanical failures; the rest take a person.
You get a plain-language list
What fails, on which pages, why it matters to a resident, and what to fix first. Ranked, written so the board can read it, with a quote for the work. Free, and yours to keep whether or not you hire us.
Step one is an address and an email. A senior developer replies within 2 business hours.
What it costs
The review is free. The rest is a number, not a mystery.
The review
$0
No commitment
Automated scan plus a developer's keyboard and screen reader pass on the pages the public uses. A written, ranked findings list is the deliverable.
The fixes
Quoted
from the findings, $150/hour, or block pricing
Theme contrast and focus styles, form labels, alt text, menu keyboard access, PDF remediation, caption workflow, an accessibility statement page. You approve the scope before anything changes.
Keeping it that way
$89
/mo per site, month to month
Hosting, updates tested on staging before they touch the live site, daily backups, security, and the developer who did the work. An update can't quietly undo a fix.
Nothing here is legal advice, and no one can promise a legal outcome. What we can promise is a review against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, fixes done by a senior developer, and a site that stays fixed.
Start with the free review. What comes back is a ranked list and a quote you can take to the board.
Built for how public entities buy
No contract, no surprises, no waiting on a vendor.
Month to month, no contract
No multi-year agreement to route through procurement. Cancel any time and keep your site and backups.
Invoices and a W-9 on request
Billed monthly with a proper invoice. We are a US company and send the paperwork your finance office asks for.
US-based senior developers
The person who reviews the site is the person who fixes it. No offshore queue, no ticket tiers.
Veteran-owned and operated
Denver, Colorado. Working remotely with public entities across the country.
Nothing changes without sign-off
The review touches nothing. Fixes go on a staging copy first and you approve what goes live.
Fixes that hold
Updates are tested before they ship, so a theme or plugin update can't reintroduce a failure the board already paid to remove.
By kind of public entity
Which date is yours, and what your site carries.
Free accessibility review
Find out where your site stands before the date does.
A senior WordPress developer reviews it against WCAG 2.1 AA and sends a written, ranked list. Free, and yours to keep.
The audit is instant and self-serve; it includes basic accessibility checks. The review is the full WCAG 2.1 AA pass by a developer.
- Reply within 2 business hours
- Written findings, yours to keep
- Nothing changes without sign-off
Free WCAG 2.1 AA review · reply within 2 business hours