How readable are Colorado agenda PDFs? 73 files checked

What we found

Of 73 recent agenda and packet PDFs from Colorado towns, cities and counties, 32 had no tags, 42 had no document title and 37 had no language set. Twenty-four files, one in three, passed all three checks. Twenty-three failed all three. We ran the check on October 5, 2026, and it names no town.

The 73 files came from 36 towns, 20 cities and 17 counties. Every one of those governments has fewer than 50,000 residents.

What each check means for a resident

Each check stands for something a resident with a screen reader either gets or does not get. Tags let the listener move by heading and read a table in order. A title tells them which file they opened. A language setting makes the words sound right. Real text means there is something to read at all.

• Tags. Without tags, a file has no marked headings, lists or tables. This is WCAG success criterion 1.3.1, Info and Relationships.
• Title. Without a title, the file is announced by its file name, which is often a string of numbers. This is 2.4.2, Page Titled.
• Language. Without a language, a screen reader may guess wrong and mispronounce the words. This is 3.1.1, Language of Page.
• Real text. A scanned page is a picture. Until it is run through text recognition, a screen reader finds nothing on it. See our guide to scanned documents in agenda packets.

How long the files are

The files ranged from 1 page to 589 pages, and together they ran to 3,571 pages. Most were short: 44 of the 73 had ten pages or fewer, and the middle file had 3. But 19 had fifty pages or more, and 11 had a hundred or more. Those long files are the full meeting packets.

Length matters because the work grows with it. A three page agenda typed in Word can be fixed in minutes, before it is saved as a PDF. A two hundred page packet is assembled from staff reports, applicant submittals, maps and signed pages, and each part arrives in a different state. Our guide on how to make an agenda PDF accessible covers both cases.

How we ran the check

We ran one automated check on one file per government. In September 2026 we looked at 250 Colorado town, city and county websites and recorded a link to the most recent agenda or packet PDF where we found one. On October 5, 2026, we ran every recorded link through the engine behind our free PDF checker.

• 250 websites looked at: 147 towns, 56 cities and 47 counties.
• 94 links recorded to a recent agenda or packet PDF.
• 73 files read on October 5, 2026.
• 21 links not read: 9 refused the request, 5 returned a web page instead of a PDF, 3 had moved, 2 timed out and 2 files were too large for the checker.

For each file the checker reads the document’s structure for tags, its title and its language, and looks for a text layer in the first pages. It does not open the file in a screen reader.

What this check cannot tell you

This check cannot tell you whether a file is accessible or whether a government meets any law. It finds missing pieces. It cannot judge whether tags are correct, whether alt text is accurate or whether the reading order makes sense. A file that passes all three checks may still be hard to use.

The Justice Department says the same about automated tools in its First Steps guide: “You won’t be able to use automated testing tools alone, because those tools can’t test for all aspects of accessibility, so you’ll want to use some combination of automated and manual assessments.”

Three more limits are worth stating plainly:

• It is not a representative sample. These are the files a program could reach. Sites that refuse automated requests, and governments that post agendas as web pages, are not in it.
• It is one file per government. A town’s next packet may be better or worse.
• Tagged does not mean finished. Agenda software often produces tags on its own. The attachments inside a packet are where the manual work is. See the WCAG checklist for documents.

Why nobody is to blame

Nobody is to blame for these numbers, because most of them come from default settings. Scanners save pictures. Many print to PDF routes drop tags, titles and language. A clerk can type a clean agenda and still post an untagged file, without any sign on screen that something was lost.

The fix is usually small when it happens at the source. Saving from Word with tags switched on, setting a title and language once in the template, and posting the typed original of a signed page instead of its scan remove most of what this check found. The rule that makes it matter is covered in are agendas and minutes covered by the web rule? and, for Colorado, in HB21-1110 explained.

Check your own agenda

You can check your own agenda in under a minute. Paste the web address of the posted PDF into the free PDF checker. It runs the same engine used here and reports, in plain words, whether the file has a text layer, tags, a title and a language, and what each result means.

If the file is a long packet, check the agenda on its own first, then the packet. A tagged agenda with an untagged packet is the most common pattern we see.

What we do about it

What we do about it is the monthly work behind these checks. Each month we find the agendas, packets, minutes and notices your town posted, fix what fails, have a person check every file, and log the result in your dated Readable Record. See how it works or pricing.

This guide reports the results of an automated check. It is not legal advice, and it does not say whether any government meets any law. For decisions about your town, talk to your attorney.