At its regular meeting on Tuesday, the Kane County Board officially OK’d a measure confirming that the county will only be posting ADA-compliant materials online going forward.
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.
So, starting this month, the county can only post ADA-compliant materials on its website.
One of the biggest impacts of this change will likely be to the agenda packets for future county meetings.
Currently, the county board compiles the agenda, measures being considered and other supporting documents for a given meeting into a single document. Tuesday’s meeting agenda, for example, topped 1,500 pages.
Much of what’s included in the agenda packets, however, are things like contracts and scans of documents not initially authored by the county, meaning the county can’t create them to be ADA-compliant from the start.
So, to comply with the new rules, the county will only be posting materials like agendas, resolutions and ordinances online as part of its agenda packets. Supporting documentation that can’t be made ADA-compliant won’t be included, but will be available for the public to look at or to be copied upon request.
The matter previously generated some discussion among the County Board, with some board members hesitant about the fact that this change would reduce public access to county documents.
The resolution outlining the planned changes, however, was ultimately recommended for approval by the board’s Executive Committee last week, and secured final approval from the board on Tuesday.
To address the reduction in public access to county documents, county staff has said that the county is looking at products that could convert files to an accessible form, but testing of them has not been promising and the products being considered would come at a high cost. Staff has also confirmed that supporting documents would be available through Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests, and that the county plans to keep a printed copy of all the supporting documents for members of the public to view in-person.
The board has also contemplated devising an explanation or message for the county’s website detailing to the public the reason for the changes.
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