By April 2026, every government agency will be required to meet modern ADA and Section 508 standards across all digital content — not just websites. The deadline is fast approaching, and the expectations are clear.

The challenge isn’t awareness — it’s scale. Thousands of PDFs, legacy Word documents, and guidance materials must remain legally formatted while becoming digitally accessible. Manual remediation can’t keep pace, and last-minute fixes only increase risk.

To meet the 2026 standard, agencies need a model that embeds accessibility into the policy process itself — not one that bolts it on afterward.

Across government, ADA compliance has traditionally been framed as a website problem. Agencies run scans, remediate PDFs, refresh navigation, and update public pages. But the most influential content agencies produce — policies, rules, SOPs, and guidance documents — remains the least accessible.

This disconnect has become one of the biggest blind spots in public-sector compliance.

Even agencies that invest heavily in digital accessibility often leave their policy infrastructure untouched: Word documents without structure, PDFs that screen readers cannot interpret, and outdated versions still circulating internally and externally.

The result is a growing risk landscape:

• ADA and Section 508 violations
• Citizen complaints
• Audit findings
• Confusion among staff and field teams
• Erosion of trust in government transparency

To solve this, agencies need to rethink where accessibility starts. It isn’t at the web layer, it’s at the policy layer.

Why Policy Accessibility Matters More Than Ever

Policy is infrastructure. It dictates how programs run, how staff operate, and how residents access services. When policies are inaccessible, the consequences ripple across an entire agency:

• Public trust suffers: Citizens equate inaccessible policies with opaque government.
• Staff make decisions based on outdated guidance: When policies aren’t centralized or clearly versioned, inconsistencies become the norm.
• Audits become fire drills: Proving compliance is almost impossible when signatures, approvals, and prior versions live in inboxes or shared drives.
• Website remediation becomes a revolving door: Fixing PDFs after the fact doesn’t address the root problem: inaccessible content creation.

Accessibility isn’t a finishing touch, it’s a foundational requirement.

The Core Problem: Legacy Policy Workflows Were Never Built for Accessibility

Even well-run agencies face systemic challenges that make ADA compliance nearly impossible under traditional policy workflows:

• Unstructured Word documents: Heading styles used visually rather than semantically break screen readers immediately.
• PDFs exported without tagging: Many PDFs become “image-only,” leaving assistive technology with nothing to read.
• Division-by-division variability: Every team uses its own templates and publishing processes, leading to inconsistent standards.
• Legal formatting requirements that conflict with ADA guidance: Many agencies must publish rules in formats that don’t meet WCAG readability guidelines. This creates a false choice between statutory compliance and accessibility.
• Lack of centralized ownership: No single source of truth means no clear path to accessibility.

This isn’t a people problem. It’s an infrastructure problem — one that requires a system-level solution.

A Modern Accessibility Framework for Government Policy

To truly modernize accessibility, agencies need a new model that embeds ADA principles throughout the policy lifecycle. That model includes:

1. Centralized policy management
All policies — draft, approved, archived — housed in one authoritative library.

2. Consistent, standards-based formatting
Templates and publishing workflows that apply accessibility rules automatically.

3. Parallel formatting to satisfy statutory and ADA requirements
Legal formatting stays intact in the source DOCX, while an ADA-compliant HTML version is generated for public and staff access.

4. Searchable, structured content
Policies become easy to navigate, even for residents using assistive technologies.

5. Attestation and audit transparency
Proof of acknowledgment and update history available instantly.

6. Accessibility baked into the publishing workflow
Not bolted on afterward, not remediated manually, not outsourced one document at a time.

This framework positions accessibility as an operational strength — not a compliance burden.

How Esper Enables ADA-Ready Policy Management

Esper is purpose-built for large, collaborative government agencies — and accessibility is embedded in the core of the platform.

• Esper preserves your legally required documents:
  Agencies keep their original DOCX exactly as written, meeting statutory-formatting requirements.
• Esper automatically generates an ADA-compliant HTML version.
  This parallel version is structured, readable, mobile-friendly, and fully accessible.
• Esper eliminates version confusion
  With one source of truth, staff always access the latest approved policy.
• Esper makes policies discoverable
  Smart Search lets employees and residents ask natural-language questions and receive answers backed by citations.
• Esper standardizes accessibility across all divisions
  Publishing workflows enforce structure, metadata, and readability consistently — regardless of who authored the document.
• Esper creates audit-ready visibility
  Every version, approval, and attestation is tracked automatically.

The result: accessibility that scales, without forcing agencies to rebuild their policy library or maintain two competing formatting standards.

The Shift Happening Across State Government

More agencies are recognizing the connection between:

• accessibility
• transparency
• compliance
• staff efficiency
• resident trust
  

Policy accessibility is no longer a “nice to have.” It is becoming a public expectation and a leadership requirement.

Agencies that modernize now will reduce risk, strengthen service delivery, and simplify long-standing operational problems. And they will meet the moment with a more equitable, citizen-centered approach to governance.

Meet the April 2026 ADA Deadline

Meeting the 2026 standard requires an accessibility model built into the policy process itself, not added afterward. Agencies need a way to ensure every new policy is published accessibly by default, without rewriting existing documents or relying on one-off remediation projects.

We’re hosting 30 minute ADA Readiness Briefings for state agencies ahead of the April 2026 deadline. In these sessions, our policy experts walk through what your agency needs to do to meet new accessibility standards and share how other states are modernizing their policy libraries.

Reserve your briefing at esper.com or email sales@esper.com to schedule your session.