This post is more of a news flash than a blog post: Colorado's HB 21-1110-- which imposes a $3,500 fine for Colorado websites and digital technologies that do not comply with WCAG 2.1 by July 1, 2024-- will almost certainly get extended one year to July 1, 2025. We have discussed and worked on HB 21-1110 a lot-- including testifying before the Colorado Office of Information Technology. This proposed extension is HB 24-1454.
What Is HB 24-1454?
Yesterday (April 15), LegiScan reported that Rep. Ortiz (D) and Sen. Lundgren (R) introduced bipartisan bill HB 24-1454 to extend the deadline for Colorado HB 21-1110. Because Representative Ortiz, a person with a disability, was the main sponsor of HB 21-1110, there is a pretty good chance that the new bill will get signed into law. Also, because municipalities in Colorado are very worried about HB 21-1110, I'd say that HB 24-1454 has a 99.999995% chance of passing unless either the plaintiff's bar or zealots in the disability community ban together against it.
What Does HB 24-1454 Say?
As currently written, HB 24-1454 gives public entities in Colorado a one-year grace period to July 1, 2025-- but ONLY IF they can demonstrate "good faith efforts" towards compliance.
What constitutes such good faith efforts? To qualify for the grace period, public entities must
- create a progress report that demonstrates "concrete and specific efforts" towards compliance on their "front-facing web pages,"
- Update this report on a quarterly basis, and
- Create a clear, easy-to-find process for "requesting redress" for inaccessible products, which includes contact options that are (a) not dependent on digital accessibility and (b) prominently displayed on front-facing web pages.
How Can Public Entities in Colorado Get This Extension?
A lot of big companies are going to tell customers that automated solutions are needed to get this extension. That approach, however, is completely wrong.
Instead, to get this extension, public entities need to do what they are already doing to comply with HB 21-1110-- but make sure to document their work along the way. This means three basic steps.
- Update Your Accessibility Statement. Your accessibility statement should include clear contact information to get access to programs and services through alternate means (e.g. telephone). This is something that you will want to do even if your website was fully accessible because many people (including some with disabilities) won't want to use your website. Honestly, every Title II entity in the country should have already been doing this since 1992. My colleague Jeff Singleton has blogged about accessibility statements before. My friend Jack McElaney also "collects" accessibility statements from around the internet, in case you're interested in what other local governments have put in their accessibility statements.
- Start Doing Light Manual Reviews of CMS Systems. We've found that most website accessibility errors are due to the various content management systems (CMS) and add-ons or plug-ins on public websites. These defects need to be corrected by the vendors and most can't be fixed by public entities. Asking a consultant to do a very light manual review of basic use cases gives government entities the information they need to get their vendors to fix the issues.
- Consider Limited Automated Testing and Training for Content Creators. Content creators can't mess up many WCAG issues because the editors in CMS systems are so limited. Usually, the problems come down to only a handful of basic problems-- such as color contrast, missing alt text, etc. This means that instead of testing and training to all of WCAG, just test and train this small handful of WCAG requirements. That way, your organization won't be beholden to expensive consultants and you can do most of the basic work yourself.
What Do I Think About the Proposed Extension?
Colorado doesn't have much choice in granting an extension. While HB 21-1110 came out in 2021, the OIT regulations weren't published until March 25, 2024. During the rulemaking, a lot o municipalities were very concerned about how to meet the July 2024 deadline. This isn't the fault of anyone-- OIT did a lot of outreach and making regulations takes a long time. Based on all of these reasons, I support the idea of an extension.
I like the concept of requiring public entities to demonstrate "good faith," but I'm very concerned that smaller municipalities won't be able to meet the bill's current requirements. In particular, I think the requirements for "front facing" web pages won't be practical. The term "front facing" web pages isn't defined but I think a reasonable reading is that it includes every page where the public accesses the programs, services, or activities of a local entity. This often means accessing services made available through the main content management system-- plus the dozens of plug-ins, add-ons, and third-party applications that public entities use for delivering specialized services. That's a ton of products that will require specialized testing. Even getting an inventory of those applications won't be practical for smaller municipalities before July 2024.
Instead, I think a more reasonable definition of "good faith" is to include (at most) two elements. First, "good faith" should require public entities to prominently post information for accessing the entity's services without accessing the website or digital technologies. This can be as simple as posting the telephone number, email address, and hours of availability of the ADA Coordinator-- and then making sure that the ADA Coordinator can rapidly meet callers' needs in accessing government services. This would be consistent with the “substantially hindered” defense in section 11.7(A) of the OIT rules and the “substantial equivalent” defense in Section 35.205 of the new ADA Title II web regulation. This simple step makes government services accessible. It's easy to do. And it's been required by the ADA for the last thirty years. The second (optional) element of "good faith" is to start planning how to meet the OIT requirements by July 2025-- and be able to demonstrate progress in meeting those plans. I wouldn't make it more prescriptive than that because I have a feeling that municipalities and local governments may come up with some creative strategies to meet the challenge.
More to Come...
Yesterday, we kicked off our series on Title II web accessibility strategies. A week ago, I explained the new DOJ final web regulation, including the fact that, except for monetary damages available in Colorado, HB 21-1110 and ADA Title II ultimately have similar requirements. This means that state and local governments should follow a similar approach for both of them.
Update: May 29, 2025. Law is Signed but there's Controversy!
In what must be the Colorado legislature's worst kept secret, HB 24-1454 was officially signed on Friday, May 24, 2025! The final release copy didn't show up on the Internet until today (May 29, 2024), however.
That said, it's already creating some controversy. Here's part of what the new law says public entities must do to earn an extension:
"...to be eligible for the immunity authorized pursuant to this subsection (1)(c)(ii), by July 1, 2024, a public entity's or state agency's good faith efforts must include creating a progress-to-date report that demonstrates concrete and specific efforts toward compliance on the entity's or agency's front-facing web pages."
The law's use of the word "on" is ambiguous. The way I read HB 24-1454, a public entity must create a progress-to-date report that describes good faith efforts to make its front-facing web pages comply with OIT rules. In its May 2024 newsletter, however, Colorado's OIT takes a very different (but still reasonable) interpretation of that same paragraph. According to OIT, HB 24-1454 requires creating a progress-to-date report that describes efforts towards general compliance with the OIT rules and posting that report on all front-facing web pages.
Those are two entirely different readings of the same paragraph! I think my reading is cleaner for two reasons:
- First, OIT's reading makes the "progress report" redundant with the overall accessibility plan already covered in paragraph 11.7 of the OIT rules. Lawyers and judges tend to dislike interpretations of a law that make one element redundant with something that already exists in another. Therefore, the "progress report" focuses on the accessibility of front-facing web pages whereas the "accessibility plan" covers all electronic and information technology (ICT).
- Second, OIT reading of this clause means that the progress report has to be put on all front-facing web pages. What possible benefit is it to put links from every public web pages that point to the same progress report? In addition, some public entities may not want to publicly show their progress reports because it could give plaintiff's a sense of where barriers continue to exist-- and then open them to litigation after July 2025.
For both these reasons, I think that a better interpretation of HB 24-1454 is that public entities should focus on the progress report (and public-facing web pages); after July 2025, they need to broaden their progress report into a full accessibility plan if they want to stay in compliance with HB 21-1110.
At the end of the day, of course, OIT wins. I would still put front-facing web pages at the very top of both the progress report and the accessibility plan! And, to play it safe, I would also put a link to the progress report in the organization's Accessibility Statement-- and provide a link to that Accessibility Statement in the footer of every web page.
Disclaimer
Nothing in this post should be interpreted as legal advice or as forming an attorney-client relationship. It is offered for educational purposes only. You should always contact a qualified attorney in your area to discuss your legal rights and responsibilities.
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