Section 508 websites for public agencies
Public sector web work runs on rules, deadlines, and a procurement process that keeps its own calendar. We have written the proposals, sat through the scoring, and done the remediation that follows.
What new public sector clients ask us to fix first
The same three problems come up on almost every first call, whether you are a town or county department, a school division, a public library, a parks or transit authority, a board or commission, or a contractor building on behalf of one.
Standards differ by entity type
The 2017 Section 508 refresh points to WCAG 2.0 AA. The ADA Title II rule adopted WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local government. Knowing which applies to you comes first.
PDFs carry the agenda
Meeting minutes, budgets, and notices posted as scanned PDFs. Screen readers get nothing, search engines get nothing, and residents cannot read the document that affects them.
Plain language never happened
Pages written by the department that owns the program, in the vocabulary of the statute. A resident trying to renew a permit reads it twice and calls the front counter.
What we build for you
The pieces that matter most in this field, in the order they usually matter, whether the website serves residents, staff, or a compliance reviewer working through a checklist.
Accessibility audits and remediation
Manual testing with keyboard and screen reader, not just an automated scan, then the actual code and content fixes. We build and remediate to WCAG 2.2 AA.
Accessibility audits and remediation: see how it worksPublic facing website design
Structure built around what residents actually come for: pay something, apply for something, find a meeting date, reach a department. Everything else sits behind that.
Public facing website design: see how it worksFindable records and notices
Agendas, minutes, and notices published as real pages with real headings, so a resident searching a case number finds the record instead of a dead link.
Findable records and notices: see how it worksHosting, security, and updates
Availability through a public meeting or a storm event, patched software, monitored uptime, and a documented backup, handled on a schedule rather than after something breaks.
Hosting, security, and updates: see how it worksLocal search for department pages
Residents search the task, not the department name. Pages that match how people phrase 'renew business license Manassas' cut call volume at the counter.
Local search for department pages: see how it worksWhich procurement inquiries are a fit
Public work has a filter step that private work does not. A fit inquiry shows its funding, its standard, and its timeline up front.
A lead worth having
- A township or authority in Virginia, Maryland, or DC with a named project manager and a funded line item.
- An RFP released with a realistic question deadline, published scoring criteria, and a scope that names the standard it wants.
- A staff member searching 'Section 508 remediation vendor' after an internal review flagged specific pages and documents.
- A redesign inquiry that arrives eight to twelve months ahead of the fiscal year the work is budgeted in.
What a wasted click looks like
- Solicitations that require a VPAT or an accessibility statement as a deliverable. We do not produce either, so we pass.
- An RFP written around an overlay widget. Overlays leave the underlying code broken, so we do not bid those.
- A scope drafted without the standard named, which turns into three rounds of clarification and a scoring committee guessing.
Our track record in public work
We have written government proposals, answered the question rounds, and delivered 508 projects, so the process itself is familiar. Requirements differ by entity type, and we say which one applies before scoping anything. Two things we are plain about: we do not produce VPATs or accessibility statements, and we do not install overlay widgets, because an overlay leaves the underlying markup exactly as broken as it was.
See how a project runs →- Audits and remediation, done by hand and verified
- Built to WCAG 2.2 AA, above the current floor
- No overlays, no VPATs, no accessibility statements
Common questions
It depends on what kind of entity you are. Section 508, as refreshed in 2017, references WCAG 2.0 AA and applies to federal agencies and to work funded through them. The ADA Title II rule adopted WCAG 2.1 AA for state and local government.
We build and remediate to WCAG 2.2 AA, which sits above both, so the website holds up as the floor moves.
No. We do audits and remediation, and we do not produce VPATs or write accessibility statements. If a solicitation lists either as a deliverable, you will need a separate vendor for that piece. We would rather say so at the start than bid work we do not do. See how our audits and remediation run.
We do not use them. An overlay sits on top of the page and leaves the underlying markup exactly as it was, so a keyboard user or a screen reader still hits the same blocked form field. Real conformance comes from headings, labels, contrast, focus order, and document structure in the source. That is the work we do.
We sort them first. Anything that is really a web page, a notice, a fee schedule, a form, gets rebuilt as a page, which fixes reading and searching at once. What has to stay a PDF gets tagged, given real headings and reading order, and checked. Scanned documents need OCR before any of that works.
Send us the solicitation or the scope
We will tell you whether it is a fit, which standard applies to your entity, and what the remediation would actually involve. No obligation either way.