More time, stronger compliance: Accessibility leaders say their work continues after DOJ rule extension

The Department of Justice this week announced a one-year extension on its compliance deadlines for states and cities to meet web accessibility guidelines, which were scheduled to go into effect for the largest organizations on Friday. Some state and local accessibility leaders are welcoming the postponement, claiming that this extra time will lead to stronger compliance.

Some advocacy groups and accessibility organizations opposed the delay, arguing that postponing the rule would harm people with disabilities. The DOJ and other federal agencies said they “underestimated the costs and burden” of the accessibility rules on smaller governments. This led to the determination that many state and local governments weren’t going to meet the original April 24 deadline, and the DOJ said that the rules did not give the department “the option to take no enforcement action,” meaning that any states or cities found out of compliance would have been subject to an onslaught of legal ramifications.

But state and local leaders, who are at varying points in their process of achieving compliance with the guidelines, said this extra time will help more state and local entities meet those goals. Ahead of the deadline, a group called the digital government network, at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, hosted Accessibility Jam, a virtual event for state and local accessibility leaders to share insights on their journey to compliance. Many of the speakers noted how much time it has taken to to implement strategies to achieve incremental improvements, foster a culture of accessibility and engage with vendors to ensure digital platforms are accessible.

Hailey Leek, innovation team lead for Salt Lake City, Utah, said during the event that her team has been been working on this project for about a year-and-a-half, focusing on improving the city’s website and rewriting the content in plain language. That job requires following a set of federal communication guidelines developed by the Plain Language Action and Information Network that informed the Plain Language Act of 2010. The style involves grammatically correct and universally understood language that includes complete sentence structure and accurate word usage, which makes the content more accessible and usable by people using tools like screen readers.

Leek said that while the extension was not something her team members anticipated, it will help them to achieve compliance, which they might not have reached by the Friday deadline.

“Even with all the prior work, we recognize that achieving full compliance by the April 2026 deadline was unlikely for our teams,” Leek wrote in an email. “This extension gives Salt Lake City the opportunity to deepen that work and not rush it — particularly by strengthening our accessibility testing practices, refining our remediation strategy, and finding the budget for it. Remediation is expensive and complex work, and we’re still trying to figure out that key piece. This additional time is meaningful, and it reflects the complexity of the work ahead. We must focus on maintaining our momentum.”

Michal Perlstein, senior manager of digital engagement for the City of Seattle, said the city would not have been ready to meet this week’s deadline, either. Still, she expressed confidence in Seattle’s accessibility culture, which she sees as a responsibility shared by every employee.

“We can’t say all of our web applications and content will be compliant by next week, but we’ve built governance, planning and documentation that show our progress,” Perlstein said during last week’s event. “What we’re really trying to do is ground this work in our values — that digital accessibility is everyone’s responsibility. With about 13,000 employees creating content every day, this means changing behaviors, big and small, in the spirit of the law — not just to meet compliance or fix issues. It’s about people and inclusivity, and we’d rather lead with that than with laws and numbers.”

Marie Cohan, Texas’ statewide digital accessibility officer, said during the event that even though her agency has been working to achieve compliance since the rules were announced in 2024, that there would still likely be work to do beyond this week’s previous compliance deadline: “We know there’s going to be some gaps, and then there’s going to be those unknown gaps.” She urged agencies to document all efforts to close compliance gaps in preparation for potential legal issues.

Other state leaders agreed, emphasizing that progress and accountability matter as much as full compliance by a fixed date. Pennsylvania Chief Accessibility Officer Kris Adams, whose office is housed within the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience, or CODE PA, also spoke at the Beeck Center’s event. He said that while accessibility is not about “perfection overnight,” it is important for states and cities to demonstrate that they have an accessibility plan, leadership, documented processes and proven progress towards compliance.

After the extension was announced, Adams told this publication that not much will change for the state, and that digital accessibility is still core to CODE PA’s mission. “Pennsylvania was already ahead of schedule and expectations for meeting the updated federal accessibility requirements before the DOJ announced the deadline extension, and CODE PA has been building on this momentum and continuing to work with agencies under the Governor’s jurisdiction to improve the digital accessibility of the Commonwealth’s websites and digital services,” he wrote in an email.

Laura Hemler, the deputy city attorney for Arvada, Colorado, who is leading the city’s accessibility efforts, said during the Beeck Center event that because Colorado’s digital accessibility rules have been in effect for several years, the DOJ’s timeline extension “does not directly affect Arvada’s commitment, nor requirement, to providing digitally accessible services.”

For governments looking for help on accessibility compliance, Kirsten Wyatt, senior director of the Beeck Center’s digital government network, pointed to the organization’s resource hub, which includes tools from on everything from inventory and assessment to remediation and ongoing governance.

“At its core, caring about accessibility is caring about the people that you serve,” Wyatt said in an interview. “On the physical side, it means that they can get up onto a sidewalk or onto a playground. But then with digital, it’s the same … with a website or with an app.”

In a statement to event attendees after the announcement of the extension, the Beeck Center noted that the “extension helps create space to plan, budget, and implement this work more thoughtfully, but it does not reduce the importance or urgency of the work itself. Accessibility remains a fundamental part of delivering effective, equitable government services. We’ve been fortunate to learn from teams that are using this moment not to pause, but to move from reactive compliance to building durable, sustainable accessibility practices that improve service delivery for everyone.”