Insights
How to write a county website RFP for ADA Title II.
What good looks likeBy Whitelam Media7 min read
All insightsA county website RFP that only says "accessible" invites a fight at launch. Here are the clauses to require, how to make vendors prove their claims and a scoring sheet you can copy.
A county website RFP decides what you live with for years. If it only says "the site must be accessible," you'll get each vendor's own idea of accessible and an argument at the end. This guide gives you the clauses to put in, how to make vendors prove their claims and a scoring sheet. It works the same way for a city website redesign RFP.
The dates moved this year. The Department of Justice published an interim final rule giving public entities of 50,000 or more until April 26, 2027 and smaller entities and special districts until April 26, 2028. The technical standard is still WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We cover the rule itself in ADA Title II website deadlines. This post is about buying. We aren't lawyers, so have your county attorney read the final RFP.
Write WCAG 2.1 AA into the scope for everything.
Vague scope is where most accessibility disputes start. Name every kind of content the standard covers:
- Every page template and every page of content live at launch.
- Every PDF, Word file and form the vendor moves or creates.
- Third-party tools the public uses through your site: agendas and minutes, online payments, permit and license portals, job boards, maps and alert sign-ups.
That last line matters. Legal summaries of the rule note that it reaches online services provided directly or through third-party arrangements. Your web vendor may not control the agenda portal you license. So require an inventory of every third-party tool, its accessibility status and a plan for each one: fix it, ask the supplier for a fix or replace it.
Make vendors prove it.
Claims are cheap. Ask for evidence you can check.
- An Accessibility Conformance Report. Vendors usually document accessibility by completing a VPAT to produce an ACR. The federal guidance says a vendor must first test the product against the standards to complete one. Ask for an ACR for the content management system and any product they supply.
- Live public sites they built. Ask for links and a recent audit report for each. Run a free scanner on them yourself before the interview.
- Their testing method in writing. Automated scans catch only part of the problem. Ask who does manual keyboard checks, which screen readers they test with and whether people with disabilities take part.
- A plain answer on overlays. Ask whether they rely on an accessibility toolbar or widget. We don't count one as a fix, because the underlying code stays the same.
Tie final payment to acceptance testing.
Write acceptance testing into the contract before launch, with money attached. Hold back part of the final payment until the site passes. Spell out what gets tested: every page template, every form, the most used PDFs and each third-party tool on your inventory. Say who tests. County staff or an independent tester should run it, never only the firm that built the site. Failures go on a fix log, the vendor fixes them within a set time and the tester checks again.
Decide who fixes problems after launch.
A site that passes on launch day can fail within weeks. Staff upload scanned PDFs, paste in tables and post images with no text description. The RFP should ask for:
- Monthly checks with a short written report.
- Fix times for accessibility bugs, treated like any other outage.
- Training for every staff member who edits the site.
- Guard rails in the editor, such as required image descriptions and locked heading styles.
If you'd rather buy this as a service, our ADA website compliance program covers audits, fixes and monthly checks at fixed prices.
Sort old PDFs before the move.
Most county sites carry years of agendas, budgets and ordinances as PDFs. The rule has limited, narrowly defined exceptions, including one for archived web content. Don't assume your old files qualify; check the terms with your attorney. Then ask the vendor to deliver a document inventory, sorted into four groups: fix it, turn it into a web page, move it to a clearly marked archive or remove it. Turning a short PDF into a page is often cheaper than fixing the PDF. Our special district guide walks through this for smaller bodies.
Set hosting, security and uptime terms.
Accessibility is one part of the contract. Ask for uptime terms with credits if they're missed, a patch schedule, backups you can restore, HTTPS everywhere and a named contact for security incidents. Make sure the county owns the domain, the code and the content. The vendor must hand everything over if you leave. An old WordPress site with a stack of plugins on shared hosting is a common risk here. Our free Website Health Check shows how outdated and exposed your current site is, and our website rebuild page explains how we move sites onto Next.js and Payload CMS.
Work the timeline back from your deadline.
Start from your date and plan backward. Acceptance testing and the second round of fixes must finish before it. The build comes before that, the award before the build and the RFP before the award. The content inventory should start now, because it takes longer than anyone expects.
- [April 26, 2027](https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2026/04/doj-extends-title-ii-ada-web-accessibility-rule-compliance-deadlines-for-state-and-local-governments/) for entities of 50,000 or more. A full rebuild in the time left is tight. Consider two tracks: fix the current site's worst problems now and run the RFP for the new site alongside.
- [April 26, 2028](https://www.consumerfinancialserviceslawmonitor.com/2026/04/doj-extends-title-ii-ada-web-accessibility-rule-compliance-deadlines-for-state-and-local-governments/) for entities under 50,000 and special districts. There's room to inventory, write the RFP, build and test in order. Don't spend it waiting.
Score proposals on proof.
Weight the scoring sheet toward what you can verify:
- Highest weight: accessibility proof (ACR, audits of live public sites, written testing method) and the acceptance testing plan.
- High weight: support after launch, monthly checks and editor training.
- Medium weight: design, the migration plan for pages and PDFs plus hosting, security and ownership terms.
- Lower weight: price. Score it, but a cheap build that fails acceptance testing costs more.
The table below pulls the clauses together, with the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard confirmed as unchanged by the extension.
| RFP clause | What the vendor hands over | Who checks it for the county | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| WCAG 2.1 AA scope | Inventory of pages, PDFs, forms and third-party tools with a plan for each | Web or IT lead | With the proposal, then at kickoff |
| Proof of skill | ACR for any product supplied, live public sites and recent audit reports | Evaluation panel | Before shortlisting |
| Testing method | Written method covering automated scans, keyboard checks and screen reader tests | Evaluation panel, ideally with an outside tester | Before award |
| Acceptance testing | Test report and fix log | County staff or an independent tester, never only the builder | Before final payment |
| Old documents | Document inventory sorted into fix, convert, archive or remove | Clerk and department heads | Before content moves |
| After launch | Monthly check report, fix times and editor training | Web lead | Every month |
| Hosting and security | Uptime terms, patch schedule, backup plan and who owns the code and domain | IT lead | Before signing |
Get the template.
The clauses above are the template. Copy them into your RFP and add your county's standard terms. For general RFP structure, see how to write a website RFP, and for how we work with public bodies, see government contractor website design. If you'd like the template as an editable document, ask us and we'll send it.
