In 2024, the Department of Justice updated its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, with requirements about how state and local governments are to ensure that website content and mobile applications are accessible to those with disabilities.
The new rules apply to entities like state and local government offices that provide benefits or social services, public schools and colleges, state and local police departments and courts, public parks and recreation programs, public libraries and public transit agencies, according to the Department of Justice.
The rationale from the federal government is that inaccessible websites and mobile apps make it difficult for people with disabilities to access government services available to other members of the public online, or to participate in civic or community events.
State and local governments with more than 50,000 residents have until April 24, 2026, to bring their websites and mobile apps into compliance. Smaller municipalities and special district governments have an additional year to comply.
At a March meeting of the Kane County Board’s Administration Committee, Charles Lasky, the chief information officer for the county’s Information Technologies Department, discussed the county’s plans in advance of the deadline next month.
Lasky explained that the IT Department had been working with the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office on how to handle the new federal rules.
One area of concern that has arisen, however, is the agenda packets for county meetings.
Currently, the county board compiles the agenda, measures being considered and other supporting documents for a given meeting into a single document. The county’s most recent board meeting agenda, for example, was over 1,300 pages.
But much of what’s included in county agenda packets are things like contracts and scans of documents that the county didn’t itself create, Lasky explained, which means the county can’t create the documents to be ADA-compliant from the beginning.
So now, the county is proposing a change to its practices: that it will post online only ADA-compliant materials like agendas, resolutions and ordinances. Through other methods, it would continue to make supporting documents that may not be compliant available to the public — but not via meeting agendas, which are posted online.
This, Lasky said, is the “best possible plan, at least at this point in time” to get the county into compliance.
There would still be a full board packet with supporting documentation for the board members themselves to view, Lasky explained. The federal rule also gives some exceptions for things like archived web content and preexisting files and social media posts.
In response, board members asked questions about the county’s plans, with some noting the possibility that the county’s proposed solution would reduce access to county documents.
Board member Leslie Juby, for example, asked if supporting documents would be available through Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests. Lasky confirmed that they would be, and also noted that the county planned to offer a printed copy of all supporting documents in-person.
Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog noted that the plan was to keep a printed copy at the County Board’s office or the Kane County Clerk’s Office.
“So that the public, if they want to see a contract (or) what not, would have the opportunity to physically go in and to be able to read it like a … lending library,” Pierog said.
But board member Michelle Gumz noted that there may be some concern from the public about their access to information.
“I think that that’s a huge concern that they’re thinking right now while they’re sitting there is, ‘Can we still see everything?,’” Gumz said.
Lasky said that, at this point, there was no promise of being able to make the full packet, with all of its additional documents, compliant — and therefore accessible online — because of the fact that the county receives information and documents from other sources it doesn’t have control over. The county is looking at products that could potentially convert files to an accessible form, he noted, but testing of them has not been promising and the products being considered would come at a high cost.
“They want to make sure that information’s accessible,” Lasky said of the federal government’s new rules. “I think the kind of side effect from this … is now, instead of being able to find a way to get all the information compliant so everybody has access, what’s happening and similar to what we’re doing is … we have to display less information because of this.”
There was some discussion among the committee members about whether a paper copy was an acceptable solution, and whether, for example, a portal through which the public could access supporting documents would be ADA-compliant.
Roger Fahnestock, Kane County’s Executive Director of Information Technologies and Buildings Management, said it would be difficult for the county to “actually interact with” residents and get them documents in the lead-up to a meeting as an agenda — which, according to state statute, must be posted at least 48 hours in advance of a meeting — is being made. He suggested that whatever solution the county lands on would likely need to be one where people can seek out the documents on their own, like providing a print copy in person.
“We are kind of being asked to comply with a … law that is making us less transparent, and this is very serious,” Juby said. “I think this is important for people to understand. This isn’t an easy yes or no decision.”
Pierog also asked about how the county’s annual budget could be made ADA-complaint.
“(Residents are) always curious about … what their money’s being spent on and how we’re allocating it,” Pierog said. “So that may be something we want to take a careful look at.”
Lasky said he didn’t know if the budget book had gone through testing to see whether it’s compliant, but that the county could test it and see what would need to be done to make it available.
Fahnestock indicated that presentations, also subject to ADA rules, would present another challenge when it comes to publishing them online. He said the county may be able to work with the creator of the presentation to get the document to be ADA -compliant, or the county could post the presentations privately for board members.
Board member David Young suggested the county could devise some kind of explanation or message on the county’s website explaining the reason for the changes, and Gumz asked Lasky to come up with language for a potential disclaimer for the website to be considered by the committee.
But Gumz also emphasized the broader goals of the federal regulation.
“This is a result of the data that … Kane County makes available to our residents, is not available to all residents,” Gumz said. “And this is trying to fix that.”
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