// government & public sector
Your government website has a federal deadline.
Every state and local government site in the country now has to meet a specific accessibility standard, on a fixed timeline set by the U.S. Department of Justice. Most small-town and county sites don't meet it yet — and the vendors who built them won't fix it. That's what we do: accessible government websites you actually own.
What the law actually requires
In April 2024 the Department of Justice finalized a rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It adopts WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the international web accessibility standard — as the technical requirement for the websites, online content, and mobile apps of state and local governments. This isn't guidance. It's a federal regulation with compliance dates.
The DOJ extended these dates by one year in April 2026 — but the standard didn't change, and the underlying duty to communicate effectively with people with disabilities applies today. The deadline is when the specific WCAG requirement bites.
What happens if you're not compliant
We'll be straight with you, because most of what's written about this online is fear-mongering from companies selling a quick fix. Title II isn't enforced with the giant flat fines you may have seen quoted — those are a different part of the ADA. It's enforced through DOJ investigations and complaints, and through private lawsuits in federal court, which typically require you to fix the site and pay the other side's legal fees. There's no six-figure penalty waiting — but there is real, dated legal exposure, and the cost and disruption of being forced to remediate under a lawsuit's timeline is far worse than doing it on your own schedule now.
Who this actually affects — and how
Accessibility isn't abstract. When a site fails WCAG, real residents can't use it:
Low vision
Text with poor color contrast is unreadable; content that can't be zoomed or resized locks people out of paying a bill or reading a notice.
Blindness
Screen readers rely on real headings, labels, and image descriptions. Without them — common on template-builder sites — a resident hears gibberish or silence.
Motor disabilities
People who can't use a mouse navigate by keyboard. If your forms and menus don't work by keyboard, they can't apply, register, or contact you.
How we fix it — and why not to buy the "quick fix"
You've probably gotten an email promising instant compliance with "one line of code." Those are accessibility overlay widgets, and city attorneys are increasingly wary of them for good reason: they don't actually make a site conformant, the DOJ and disability advocates have publicly discredited them, and sites using them still get sued. There is no one-line fix.
Overlay widget
- A script layered over a broken site
- Doesn't fix the underlying code
- Recurring monthly fee, forever
- Still leaves you legally exposed
- You keep renting the same broken site
What RedCyfer does
- A real, accessible website, built correctly
- Clean semantic code — compliant by construction
- Documents and PDFs remediated too
- Built and audited to WCAG 2.1 AA
- You own it outright — no platform rent
We rebuild your site on a fast, secure foundation you own — not a template you rent from Wix or GoDaddy. It's built to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard from the ground up, we clean up the documents and forms residents actually use, and we can maintain it for you on a simple monthly care plan that costs less than what most towns already pay to rent a builder. You end up compliant, faster, and in control of your own website.
Built on RedCyfer Civic — see it for yourself
Municipal sites we build run on RedCyfer Civic, our content management system designed specifically for local government: departments, meeting agendas and minutes, news, an accessible events calendar, alerts, and a document library — all publishing to a fast, static website that's accessible by construction and has nothing to hack. Your clerk edits everything in a plain admin screen; the system itself refuses to publish inaccessible choices (it won't even accept a color scheme that fails contrast requirements).
Don't take our word for it: browse the City of Fairhaven — a complete demonstration city we run on Civic. Scan it with any accessibility checker you like; it grades clean on the same WCAG 2.1 AA audit that fails the overwhelming majority of municipal sites.
Start with a free accessibility scan
Tell us your city, county, or district website and we'll run it against the WCAG 2.1 AA standard and send you a plain-English report of exactly what's failing and what it would take to fix — no cost, no obligation. It's the honest first step, whether you hire us or not.
Prefer to talk first? Book a time or email chris@redcyfer.com. Serving towns, counties, and special districts in every state — it's a federal rule with the same deadline everywhere, and the scan, the build, the content migration and the staff training are all done remotely. I'll join your council meeting by video, or in person if you're within driving distance of Jonesboro.
Common questions
Does my town's website really have to be ADA compliant?
Yes. The DOJ's 2024 rule under ADA Title II applies to every state and local government — cities, towns, villages, counties, and special districts like water, fire, and library districts — regardless of size. Smaller governments got more time, not an exemption.
What's the deadline for ADA website compliance?
April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 or more people; April 26, 2028 for governments under 50,000 and for special districts. The technical standard for both is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
What is WCAG 2.1 AA?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — the international standard for making websites usable by people with disabilities: sufficient color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen-reader compatible structure, labeled forms, described images, and accessible documents. The DOJ rule makes Level AA the legal requirement for government websites.
Do accessibility overlay widgets make my site compliant?
No. Overlay widgets layer a script over a broken site without fixing the underlying code. Sites using them still fail audits and still get sued, and disability advocates and legal experts have publicly discredited them. There is no one-line fix.
Do PDFs and meeting minutes have to be accessible too?
Documents residents use to access services or participate in government — agendas, minutes, forms, notices — are covered. There's a limited exception for older archived documents, but anything current needs to be accessible. Often the best fix is publishing them as web pages instead of PDFs.
How much does an accessible municipal website cost?
Less than you'd think — typically a simple monthly fee sized to your town, with no big upfront build cost and no platform rent that never ends. Request a free scan and we'll quote your exact situation with the report.
Who does the work: I'm Chris Woodall — 25+ years across Linux systems, networks, and cloud infrastructure, based in Jonesboro, Arkansas and working with governments nationwide. One person, accountable by name, who builds it and answers the phone afterward. More about me and the platforms I run →
Sources: DOJ final rule on Title II web accessibility (April 2024) and the compliance-date extension (April 2026), published at ADA.gov and the Federal Register. Automated scans identify specific, fixable defects; they don't by themselves establish legal compliance. RedCyfer builds to WCAG 2.1 AA and does not sell overlay widgets or guarantees against litigation.