ADA Website Rules for Wisconsin Towns, Villages & Counties

Short answer: under the U.S. Department of Justice's 2024 ADA Title II rule, state and local governments must make their websites, mobile apps and online documents meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Governments serving 50,000 or more people had to comply by April 24, 2026. Those serving fewer than 50,000, which includes most Wisconsin towns and villages, and special district governments have until April 26, 2027. Deadlines and guidance can change, so confirm your obligations with your attorney and ADA.gov.

Who this applies to

• Counties, cities, villages and towns
• Public school districts and public colleges
• Special districts such as utility and sanitary districts
• Their websites, apps, online forms, documents and videos, with some exceptions

What WCAG 2.1 AA means in practice

• Text alternatives for meaningful images
• Captions for videos
• Color contrast of at least 4.5:1 for normal text
• Keyboard access to everything, with no mouse required
• Labeled forms and clear error messages
• Accessible documents: tagged PDFs with a logical reading order, or HTML versions
• Layouts that still work when zoomed to 200%

The PDF problem

Many Wisconsin municipal websites hold years of agendas, minutes, ordinances and forms as scanned PDFs. A scanned image of text is not accessible. The rule includes exceptions for some archived content, but documents still in active use generally need to be made accessible or converted to web pages.

A practical compliance plan

1. Inventory your pages, documents, forms and third-party tools (payment portals, agenda software).
2. Audit with automated tools plus manual keyboard and screen-reader testing.
3. Fix templates first: headers, menus and footers appear on every page.
4. Remediate high-traffic documents and adopt accessible templates for new ones.
5. Ask vendors for accessibility conformance reports.
6. Publish an accessibility statement with a way to report problems.
7. Train the staff who post content.

Overlays are not a fix

Accessibility overlay widgets do not make a site compliant. Fixing the underlying site and documents is what counts.

Frequently asked questions

Does this apply to our online payment portal?

Generally, yes. Services you provide through vendors are still your responsibility, so ask your payment and agenda vendors how they meet WCAG 2.1 AA.

Our town has a tiny budget. Where do we start?

Start with the homepage, contact information, the forms residents use most and current agendas, then work backward.

We help Wisconsin municipalities get compliant affordably. See websites for towns, villages and counties and ADA website compliance.