Streamline Blog

Website accessibility is no longer just a best practice—it’s a legal requirement. Many special districts are finding themselves caught in unexpected and costly ADA compliance lawsuits. While website accessibility tools and widgets promise easy solutions, they often fall short, leaving districts vulnerable to legal challenges. Mac Clemmens, CEO of Streamline, has been actively involved in helping special districts navigate these challenges. Recently, he shared a real-world example of how one district faced an ADA lawsuit over a non-compliant website they were in the process of transitioning. They had invested in an accessibility widget, assuming they were covered, only to find that it failed to meet legal standards. With the help of expert legal counsel, they were able to reduce their settlement from $17,500 (originally demanded) to $5,000 to $2,500—but this case highlights an important lesson: automated accessibility solutions are not enough to mitigate risk. Mac also noted another case in which a request for accommodation escalated into a full legal complaint involving not just the district, but the county and a related government agency. Because the district acted quickly and had a structured compliance process in place, they avoided paying any legal fees.

The Department of Justice has issued new website accessibility guidelines that will significantly impact special districts nationwide. Here are the 5 biggest takeaways:

By the end of 2023, more than 10% of districts were affected by a website ADA claim. This rapid increase is startling, and we want to help you stay informed and prepared for any risks facing special districts.

So, you’ve tested your site for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, and while you’re well on your way, you still have some areas of your site that aren’t quite up to modern standards. Perhaps some of those supporting board materials from third parties are wrecking your score and keeping you up at night, or your website developer is taking forever to fix those items identified in your last monthly scan…

California legislators are pushing for additional transparency requirements for local government agencies. Their latest bid, Senate Bill 931, will require our districts to provide a copy of the full agenda packet via mail or email to anyone who requests it. Sounds like a great idea on the surface, doesn’t it? Of course, we agree that the public has the right to know what their elected officials are doing when it comes to official district business, but there are numerous problems with this proposed bill.

Creating websites that are accessible to visitors with disabilities can be challenging, especially for developers building one-off / standalone sites. Most websites that were built even a year ago are likely not accessible, and many of the content management systems out there aren't accessible out-of-the-box, so to speak. If your website partner wasn't specifically told to build your website in an accessible way, it's likely that your site may have a few issues. Accessible websites aren't easy to build! If you're wondering if your site is accessible, you can get an idea by using an automated scanner. Automated testing won't catch every potential issue, but it will check the basics (and the most obvious), giving you an overall idea of how you're doing. (If you need 100% comprehensive testing, have it done by professionals using assistive devices.) So how do you test your site yourself?

There are a few formatting requirements that apply to local government agencies in California: Section 508 (for visitors with disabilities); AB 169 guidelines for anything considered “open data;” and AB 2257, which governs formatting and posting requirements for any agency’s main governing body’s agenda. In this article we’ll touch on the first two; to learn more about AB 2257 and home page agenda posting, check out this related article.