2026-05-17 · 5 min read

Broward County Government Website Accessibility: DOJ Title II WCAG Compliance for South Florida's Second-Largest County

# Broward County Government Website Accessibility: DOJ Title II WCAG Compliance for South Florida's Second-Largest County

Broward County is South Florida's second-largest county — approximately 1.9 million residents in 31 incorporated municipalities including Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, and Coral Springs. The county government, the City of Fort Lauderdale, and dozens of municipalities each operate independent digital presences that are independently covered by the DOJ Title II Final Rule.

The deadline: April 26, 2027 for governments serving populations of 50,000 or more.

Who Is Covered in Broward County

Broward County government — Approximately 1.9 million residents. broward.org and associated subdomains, applications for property tax, building permits, elections, transit (BCT), court records, and dozens of department-specific portals.

City of Fort Lauderdale — Approximately 190,000 residents. The county seat operates a substantial digital presence including online permitting (Accela platform), utility payment, and public records portals.

City of Hollywood — Approximately 150,000 residents. Hollywood's digital services include permits, utilities, and code enforcement portals.

City of Coral Springs — Approximately 130,000 residents. Coral Springs operates award-winning government digital services — but compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA is a separate standard from UX quality.

City of Pompano Beach — Approximately 115,000 residents. Online permitting, utilities, and recreation registration portals.

City of Davie — Approximately 110,000 residents. A Town of Davie government with standard municipal digital services.

City of Plantation — Approximately 95,000 residents. Municipal government services portal.

City of Sunrise — Approximately 95,000 residents. City digital services including development services and utility portals.

City of Miramar — Approximately 130,000 residents. City government services including code enforcement and permitting.

City of Pembroke Pines — Approximately 170,000 residents. City services portal, recreation registration.

Each city and the county is independently covered. Broward County's compliance program does not cover Fort Lauderdale's compliance, and vice versa. Each entity is responsible for its own documented WCAG compliance program.

Broward County School District — One of the largest school districts in the United States, serving approximately 260,000 students. The public-facing school district website, parent portals, and registration systems are covered by the rule.

Broward County Transit (BCT) — The county transit authority operates a public-facing trip planner, schedule information, and rider communications portal. As a government transit authority, its public web presence is covered.

Broward County Supervisor of Elections — Voter registration, polling location finder, and election results portals.

The DOJ Title II Requirement

The DOJ Title II Final Rule, published March 2024, requires state and local governments to bring public-facing web content and mobile apps into conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA by the compliance deadline. For jurisdictions over 50,000 population, that deadline is April 26, 2027.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA has 50 success criteria covering:

• Alternative text for all images and non-text content (1.1.1)
• Captions for all prerecorded and live video (1.2.2, 1.2.4)
• Color contrast — 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI components (1.4.3, 1.4.11)
• Reflow — content readable without horizontal scrolling at 320px width (1.4.10)
• Keyboard access for all functionality (2.1.1, 2.1.2)
• Skip navigation links (2.4.1)
• Descriptive page titles (2.4.2)
• Visible focus indicator (2.4.7)
• Accessible form labels and error messages (3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3)
• Programmatic name, role, state for all UI components (4.1.2)

High-Risk Areas for Broward County

Permit and development services portals — Broward County and Fort Lauderdale both operate online permitting through enterprise platforms. These platforms frequently introduce keyboard navigation failures, inaccessible date pickers, and form labels that aren't programmatically associated with their fields.

Broward County School District document library — School districts publish enormous volumes of PDF documents: board agendas, policy documents, curriculum guides, annual reports. Many older PDFs are scanned images — accessible only visually, invisible to screen readers.

Public meeting recordings — County Commission and municipal council meetings are routinely recorded and published on YouTube and on government websites. Without synchronized captions that meet accuracy standards, these recordings fail WCAG 1.2.2 and are inaccessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing residents.

Transit information — Bus schedule PDFs and stop information pages are essential government services for many disability community members who rely on transit. Accessibility failures in transit information directly affect the community most likely to encounter other accessibility barriers.

Election and civic services — Voter registration and polling information portals are the clearest case for accessibility compliance: inaccessibility in election services directly disenfranchises voters with disabilities, which is precisely the kind of harm the ADA was designed to prevent.

The Enforcement Environment in Broward County

South Florida has one of the most active ADA enforcement environments in the country — private ADA litigation targeting restaurants, businesses, and government facilities has been consistently high in the Southern District of Florida. Web accessibility complaints and private ADA litigation targeting government websites represent the same plaintiff bar and advocacy community that drives physical ADA enforcement.

The DOJ's Disability Rights Section investigates Title II complaints. A Broward County resident with a disability who cannot use the county's online permit system, or a Fort Lauderdale resident who cannot navigate the city's utility portal, has a clear path to complaint. Given Broward's large and legally active disability advocacy community, the probability of complaint for non-compliant governments is meaningfully elevated.

Timeline: Reaching Compliance by April 2027

For Broward County government or any Broward municipality starting in May 2026:

May–June 2026: Scope definition and procurement. Catalog all covered domains, applications, and document types. Issue or award a WCAG audit engagement.

July–August 2026: Professional audit — 200 representative pages, NVDA and VoiceOver manual testing, axe-core automated scan, PDF sampling.

September 2026: Findings report delivered. Remediation plan developed with responsible parties and target dates by finding severity.

September–January 2027: Remediation. Critical findings (keyboard traps, unlabeled forms) within 90 days. Major findings (contrast, PDF remediation, video captions) by December 2026.

February 2027: Re-audit of remediated findings.

March 2027: Accessibility statement published.

April 26, 2027: Compliance deadline.

The Parallax WCAG Audit

The Parallax WCAG audit from Morton Technology Consulting is a fixed-fee ($9,500) professional WCAG 2.1 Level AA audit designed for Florida government agencies operating under the April 2027 deadline. 200 representative pages, NVDA and VoiceOver manual testing, axe-core automated scan, full findings report with severity classifications, remediation roadmap, and DOJ-compliant accessibility statement.

See the sample audit report — a completed assessment of a Florida government website — to understand the deliverable format.

For Broward County or any Broward municipality, an initial scoping conversation establishes the right audit scope for your specific digital footprint and timeline.

Contact: [email protected]

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*Morton Technology Consulting LLC, Tallahassee, FL. Government website WCAG compliance audits for the April 2027 deadline.*

Morton Technology Consulting LLC — WCAG 2.1 AA audits for Florida government agencies. Parallax audit → · WCAG Readiness Kit → · All posts →