Paul N. Lalley, Esq., Campbell Durrant, P.C. | April 2026
When you read about the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in this publication, you usually are reading about recent case developments concerning employment discrimination claims or whether the EEOC or a court punished an employer for failing to provide a required reasonable accommodation to an employee or an applicant. We tend to think of the ADA first for how it regulates employment.
But a significant part of the ADA also regulates the public’s ability to access public facilities. Title II of the ADA applies to “public entities” such as state or local governments, as well as departments, agencies, special purpose districts, or other instrumentalities of state or local governments, and provides that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. That duty to ensure disabled persons’ access to government services, programs or activities applies to technology such as websites and mobile applications that local governments frequently use as a means of providing services to their residents. To quote the U.S. Department of Justice’s website: “[w]ebsites and mobile apps that are not accessible can make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to access government services, like ordering mail-in ballots or getting tax information, that are quickly and easily available to other members of the public online. Sometimes, inaccessible websites and mobile apps can keep people with disabilities from joining or fully participating in civic or other community events like town meetings or programs at their child’s school.”
On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a Final Rule that updated regulations under Title II of the ADA for local government web content and applications to ensure that they were accessible to persons with disabilities. As initially proposed, the Final Rule would have required local governments with a population of greater than 50,000 to comply by April 26, 2026. However, on April 20, 2026, the DOJ published an Interim Final Rule that extended the compliance deadlines. (And everyone reading this article who was not even aware of the original deadline can breathe a sign of relief). The new compliance deadlines depend on the size of the municipality. Municipalities with a population of 50,000 or greater must comply by no later than April 26, 2027. Municipalities with a population less than 50,000 must comply by no later than April 26, 2028.
What does the Final Rule require for your municipality’s website and mobile apps to comply with the ADA’s accessibility requirements? The technical requirements are set forth in the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) – a technical standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. For local government websites, the DOJ Final Rule requires that they meet “WCAG Technical Standard 2.1, Level AA.” Now, full disclosure: this author is not an I.T. technician and can barely use a smart phone. You are advised to consult with your municipality’s I.T. director or service provider to understand what the WCAG 2.1, Level AA standard means for what your website and mobile apps must do to comply with these accessibility requirements. But you should understand that these standards apply whether you maintain your website or mobile apps in-house or if you use an outside service provider.
The (now delayed) Final Rule provides five exceptions to the general requirement that local government websites and mobile apps meet the WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standard. One exception is for archived web content that (1) was created before the implementation date of the Final Rule; (2) is kept for research, reference or recordkeeping; (3) is kept in a special area for archived content; and (4) has not been changed. Another exception is for preexisting conventional electronic documents (such as pdfs) that are: (1) word processing, pdf, presentation or spreadsheet files; and (2) were available on the local government’s website or mobile app before the compliance deadline. A third exception is for individualized documents that are password protected or otherwise secured. A fourth exception is for third party posts on a municipal website (think public citizen posts). The fifth exception is for preexisting social media posts. The general reason for these exceptions is that complying with WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility for these “legacy” materials would be significantly burdensome when weighed against the marginal need for public access to them.
Guidance issued by the DOJ acknowledges that when the Final Rule fully takes effect, there may be instances where a local government’s website or mobile app does not meet the WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards, but if the local government can show that the violation is so minor that it does not deny a disabled person’s access, then that will not amount to a violation of the Final Rule’s accessibility requirements. The DOJ’s guidance suggests, however, that this will be a high standard to meet and that any claims that non-compliance with the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard does not deny disabled people access will be carefully scrutinized.