Every day across America, an estimated 40,000 special districts deliver drinking water, fight fires, maintain parks and restore our power after storms. Together, they manage the services that support and even save our lives. Special districts are local governments created by communities to provide a specific service that their municipality or county doesn’t already provide. Every dollar and every employee is focused on that specific mission, delivering that service exceptionally well for residents.
However, meeting that mission doesn’t lessen their obligation to ensure their websites and online documents are accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Why Web Accessibility Looks Different for Special Districts
The ADA requirements impact special districts differently than larger cities and towns. Many districts operate with small budgets and lean staff, often just a handful of employees covering multiple roles at once. One person posting a board packet and overseeing accessibility compliance may also be preparing payroll, responding to residents or managing board meetings. Special districts need an accessibility compliance strategy that reflects the reality of how they actually operate.
The Biggest Accessibility Challenge for Special Districts Isn’t Your Website
It’s easy to assume web accessibility is just a matter of website design, but from my work with hundreds of special districts, I’ve learned that their biggest accessibility challenge usually isn’t the website itself. It’s the board packets, meeting agendas, budgets, engineering reports, permits, resolutions and public records that districts rely on every day to conduct business.
Over the years, PDFs have become the standard for special districts because they’re easy to create, distribute and save, but they’re one of the hardest formats to make accessible. Unlike a modern webpage, a PDF wasn’t designed for mobile devices, screen readers or real-time translation. Making PDFs truly accessible often requires manually correcting reading orders, tagging headings, describing tables and images, and validating documents against accessibility standards.
Inaccessible documents are a potential compliance risk for special districts.
For example, a special district received a request from a resident who was blind for an accessible version of a 111-page board packet. The district worked around the clock and produced an accessible version within 24 hours, but because everyone else had received access to the packet earlier, the resident argued they hadn’t received the same opportunity to review the material before the public meeting.
Experiences like this illustrate why accessibility can’t be treated as a one-time cleanup project. Special districts need a digital accessibility strategy: one built around how they actually operate, not one borrowed from large cities. That also doesn’t mean districts need to remediate decades of historical records immediately. The DOJ provides an archived content exception allowing older materials to remain online without full remediation when they are no longer used to support current programs or services. Rather than requiring immediate remediation of outdated archived materials, the exemption allows special districts to prioritize making current, high-use documents — such as board packets, meeting agendas, public forms, and financial reports — accessible first.
Building Accessibility Into Everyday Operations
Next, consider building accessibility into the publishing process itself so staff can continue publishing documents on their existing timelines. Tools that convert PDFs and other documents into accessible HTML can automatically generate image descriptions, verify reading order and flag potential issues. Staff can review and refine the output as their schedules allow.
Most importantly, this can create processes that match the size and capacity of your organization. Many agencies are moving toward HTML-based publishing, building content as webpages rather than PDFs, because it’s more accessible by design.
Designate a person to be responsible for accessibility for your district, including publishing an accessibility statement and establishing a clear accommodation process. Set up a schedule for routinely reviewing your website and online documents using free or paid accessibility scanning tools to identify issues. All this helps make accessibility part of your normal operations rather than something you scramble to address after receiving a request.
Accessibility Can Support the Mission of Special Districts
I’ve seen firsthand that digital accessibility is within reach for special districts. After Colorado implemented statewide accessibility requirements, districts across the state showed that meaningful progress is possible by approaching compliance as an operational process rather than a one-time project. Across the country, special district associations and regional ADA offices are there to help you outline what accessibility compliance can look like for your district.
Far more than a line item on a monthly utility statement or water bill, special districts provide vital services that would otherwise be more expensive or unavailable altogether. Building accessibility into everyday operations is another way districts fulfill their mission: ensuring every resident can access the public information about the vital services their district works so hard to provide.
Mac Clemmens is the CivicPlus® Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Innovation and the Co-Founder of DocAccess and Streamline. He is a proud advocate of website accessibility and local government, having presented on the subject at conferences nationwide. He received the prestigious “Vision Award” from Disability Rights California — the nation’s largest disability rights advocacy organization — in recognition of his commitment to creating accessible website experiences for all users. Mac is passionate about helping local governments tell their stories and engage with their communities, ensuring that the fear of ADA noncompliance doesn’t stand in the way.
Photo Credit: Mikhail Nilov, Pexels
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