Are agendas and minutes covered by the web rule?

Are agendas and minutes covered?

Agendas and minutes are covered by the ADA Title II web rule once a town posts them online, whether as web pages or as PDFs. From April 26, 2028, a town under 50,000 people generally must make each new agenda, packet and set of minutes meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA when it is posted.

The rule applies to web content a public entity “provides or makes available” (28 CFR 35.200). It does not list agendas by name. It does not need to, because of how it defines documents. For the rule as a whole, start with the pillar guide.

Why a PDF counts as web content

A PDF counts as web content because the rule says so. Its definition of web content names conventional electronic documents as an example, and those are defined as PDF, word processor, presentation and spreadsheet files. A Word agenda, a slide deck for a hearing and a spreadsheet budget are all covered.

Examples of web content include text, images, sounds, videos, controls, animations, and conventional electronic documents.

28 CFR 35.104, “Web content”

Conventional electronic documents means web content or content in mobile apps that is in the following electronic file formats: portable document formats (“PDF”), word processor file formats, presentation file formats, and spreadsheet file formats.

28 CFR 35.104, “Conventional electronic documents”

New meeting documents after your compliance date

New meeting documents posted after your compliance date generally must conform when they go up. The Justice Department said so when it explained the rule in 2024: agendas, minutes and related documents for meetings held after a town’s date would likely not count as archived content, even if moved into an archive later.

Therefore, new content such as agendas, meeting minutes, and other documents related to meetings that take place after the public entity is required to comply with subpart H would likely not meet all parts of the definition of “archived web content.”

Appendix to the 2024 rule, 89 FR 31340

The Department also said a town cannot get around this by moving new minutes or agendas into an archive section. It added:

Instead, such newly created documents would generally need to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA for their initial intended purpose related to the meetings, and they would need to remain accessible if they were later added to an area clearly identified as being archived.

Appendix to the 2024 rule, 89 FR 31362

The fact sheet gives a matching example: a slide presentation a town posts after its date, for an upcoming council meeting, would not fall under the exception for older documents.

Old agendas and minutes already online

Old agendas and minutes already online usually fall under the preexisting documents exception if they were posted before your compliance date. The exception ends when a document is still used to apply for, gain access to, or participate in a service, or when you change the document after that date.

The Department’s First Steps guide says minutes from past council meetings would probably qualify, “so long as they were posted before the date the town has to comply with the rule” and are not currently used to take part in a service. Editing ends the protection:

If a public entity changes or revises a preexisting document following the date it is required to comply with subpart H, the document would no longer be “preexisting” for the purposes of the exception.

Appendix to the 2024 rule, 89 FR 31364

Switching website platforms does not by itself end it. If a town copies old documents to a new system without changing them, the Department said they “would likely still be covered by the exception.” For documents you want to keep in a labeled archive, see the archived content guide.

What about before the 2028 date?

Before the 2028 date, the WCAG deadline does not yet apply to towns under 50,000, but Title II does. A resident who cannot read a posted agenda can ask for it in a form they can use, and the town must communicate with that resident as effectively as with anyone else.

A public entity shall take appropriate steps to ensure that communications with applicants, participants, members of the public, and companions with disabilities are as effective as communications with others.

28 CFR 35.160(a)(1)

The Department said plainly that during the extension a person “may need to request accessible versions of certain electronic documents” and wait for them (91 FR 20908). A town that fixes its agendas now shortens that wait.

What a readable agenda PDF needs

A readable agenda PDF needs real text rather than a picture of text, tags that mark headings, lists and tables, a sensible reading order, a document title, a set language, and text descriptions for images and maps. Each maps to a WCAG 2.1 success criterion, and W3C publishes PDF techniques for them.

The tagging requirement comes from Success Criterion 1.3.1:

Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.

WCAG 2.1, Success Criterion 1.3.1

In plain terms, a screen reader should be able to hear “heading, item 4, public hearing” rather than a run of loose words. W3C’s PDF9 technique covers heading tags. Scans come first, though: W3C says a document made of scanned images of text “is inherently inaccessible because the content of the document is images, not searchable text” (PDF7). Automated checkers help, but the Department warns they “can’t test for all aspects of accessibility.”

A worked example: one month of meeting documents

A worked example shows the monthly rhythm. Picture a hypothetical town of 2,000 people in June 2028, after its compliance date. It posts a regular meeting agenda, a 120-page packet, a special meeting notice and the May minutes. Each is a new document, so each generally must conform when posted.

The agenda and the minutes come from a word processor. They mostly need a title, a language and proper heading and list tags, which a careful export can supply. The notice is one page and quick.

The packet is the real work. It holds a staff memo, a signed contract scanned from paper, a consultant’s traffic report and a budget table. The scan needs text recognition and tagging. The consultant’s report is not third-party content here, because the town is posting it. The budget table needs table tags so a screen reader can match each figure to its row and column.

Meanwhile, the 2019 minutes in the town’s old records page stay as they are, unless a resident asks for an accessible copy.

What we do about it

What we do about it is monthly and practical. Each month we scan your site for new agendas, packets, minutes and notices, and we fix those documents. We note every file, fix and decision, with dates, in the Readable Record. You can read the full cycle on how it works.

This guide explains the rule in plain language. It is not legal advice. For decisions about your town, talk to your attorney.