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Commissioners will hear about the recent ADA requirements pertaining to digital accessibility and how City of South San Francisco staff are preparing to abide by the new requirements by the federal government’s deadline. (Devin Stenhouse, Management Analyst II)
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RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
It is recommended commissioners listen to a presentation about the recent ADA requirements pertaining to digital accessibility and how South San Francisco staff are preparing to abide by the new requirements by the federal government’s deadline.
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BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
On April 24, 2024, the Federal Register published the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) final rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The final rule has specific requirements about how to ensure that web content and mobile applications (apps) are accessible to people with disabilities. Because the ADA was initially signed prior to the development of modern mobile applications and the internet, a new standard needed to be developed. The World Wide Web’s Consortium’s Accessibility Guidelines (AG) Working Group developed specific guidelines that would also meet federal and state compliance standards. These guidelines are called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. The DOJ allowed cities with greater than 50,000 residents two years to become WCAG 2.1-compliant, thus providing an April 24, 2026 deadline.
The City’s Information Technology (IT) Department initially spearheaded the City’s efforts to meet WCAG compliance by hosting six webinars in 2025, each presented by AccessAbility Officer Co-Founder and Head of Services, Heather Burns. Each webinar focused on a specific topic and provided the presentation slide deck and notes for each. Topics included:
• Open Cities (City Website)
• Web Accessibility
• Communications and Social Media
• Audio and Video
• Document Accessibility
• Testing Digital Accessibility
Additionally, each webinar provided relevant resources related to each topic such as online accessibility checkers, additional guidelines, and examples of how to practically utilize both. All these references (including recordings of each training course) can be found on the City’s intranet, thus are available to all staff.
Additionally, the IT department has partnered with the City Manager Office’s Management Analyst II (MA2), to help assist with city-wide implementation. The City’s MA2 recruited one to three “digital access liaisons” from each department and collectively meets with all them monthly. While the City is expected to comply by April 24, 2026, the IT Department and MA2 have set an internal deadline to meet compliance by April 1, 2026, to allow for a few weeks to reconcile any last-minute issues. So far, this committee is on pace to mee the April 1st deadline.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, commissioners will hear about the recent ADA requirements pertaining to digital accessibility and how the City of South San Francisco staff are preparing to abide by the new requirements.