Is Erie's Website Ready for the ADA Title II Deadline?
Did you know the deadline already changed?
The deadline you may have written down last year is no longer the right one. A DOJ Interim Final Rule issued April 20, 2026 extended the original ADA Title II dates by one year, so Erie now has until April 26, 2028. That extra year is exactly the window to find and fix problems before enforcement begins — the DOJ has given no signal that the date will move again.
Erie's latest accessibility scan
Overall compliance risk: Moderate — page-level accessibility failures across the site
Top issues, in plain English
- critical Composite controls are missing required child elements for assistive tech (WCAG 1.3.1 · 71 pages)
- critical Accessibility attributes point at elements that don't exist (WCAG 4.1.2 · 10 pages)
- critical Buttons have no accessible name — assistive tech users can't tell what they do (WCAG 4.1.2 · 9 pages)
- critical ARIA attributes must conform to valid names (WCAG 4.1.2 · 6 pages)
- critical ARIA accessibility attributes are used incorrectly and may mislead screen readers (WCAG 4.1.2 · 3 pages)
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What WCAG 2.1 Level AA means for town government websites
With 38,594 residents, Erie falls under the DOJ's small-entity tier (under 50,000 population), which comes with the later of the two federal deadlines — but the same technical standard.
The rule points to WCAG 2.1 Level AA — a widely used technical checklist. Stripped of jargon, it asks simple questions: can a blind resident using a screen reader pay a bill on your site? Can someone who can't use a mouse complete a form with just a keyboard? Is the text readable against its background?
Smaller entities sometimes assume they're exempt. They aren't — the later deadline is the only accommodation the rule makes for size. Services like utility bill payment, permit applications, and public meeting agendas all need to work for residents with disabilities.
Erie is a mid-size community, and its website is the front door for utility bill payment, permit applications, and public meeting agendas. Under ADA Title II, that front door has to work for every resident.
Don't find out about problems from a demand letter
A11yCheck monitors Erie's website continuously and sends a plain-English weekly digest — no technical background needed.