Morton Digital

2026-05-17 · 6 min read

Chatham County and City of Savannah Government Website Accessibility: What the DOJ Title II Rule Requires

Abstract dark editorial illustration: a Savannah Georgia government compliance diagram rendered in fine copper line work on dark slate, with WCAG accessibility markers. No text.

# Chatham County and City of Savannah Government Website Accessibility: What the DOJ Title II Rule Requires

Chatham County and the City of Savannah are two of Georgia's most consequential local governments — and they are separately covered entities under the Department of Justice's updated Title II ADA rule. Both face an April 26, 2027 compliance deadline for making their public-facing websites and mobile apps conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. With less than a year of runway remaining from mid-2026, agencies that have not yet audited their digital properties are already behind.

Savannah's profile makes the stakes unusually high. The city draws millions of visitors each year, including a substantial population of visitors with disabilities who rely on government websites to access parking permits, historic district information, public event schedules, and transit options. When those web properties fail accessibility standards, it is not an abstract compliance gap — it is a concrete barrier to people trying to participate in civic and economic life.

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Who Must Comply by April 2027

The April 26, 2027 deadline applies to public entities serving populations over 50,000. In the Savannah metro, that covers:

Chatham County Government (~300,000 residents) — operates chathamcounty.org, which handles property records, court services, elections, public safety information, and county commission materials.

City of Savannah (~150,000 residents) — operates savannahga.gov, which covers permitting, utilities, parking services, city council records, and a wide range of resident-facing portals.

Chatham Area Transit (CAT) — CAT is an independent transit authority serving the Savannah metropolitan area and is a separately covered entity under Title II. Its website, trip planning tools, and any rider-facing mobile apps fall within scope and carry the April 2027 deadline.

Georgia Southern University Armstrong Campus — as a public university operating in Savannah, the Armstrong Campus is covered under Title II and must meet the April 2027 deadline independently of Chatham County or city government timelines.

Port of Savannah / Georgia Ports Authority — as a state authority, the Georgia Ports Authority's public-facing digital properties are covered under Title II at the state level, also on the April 2027 timeline.

Smaller municipalities in Chatham County face a later deadline. Pooler (~28,000) and Garden City (~9,000) are under the 50,000-resident threshold and have until April 26, 2028. That later deadline does not exempt them from the rule — it gives smaller agencies more time to budget and prepare.

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private institution and is not covered under Title II's public entity provisions.

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What Must Be Accessible

The rule covers all web content and mobile apps that a public entity makes available to the public or uses to offer programs, services, or activities. For Chatham County and the City of Savannah, that means:

Web content published before June 24, 2024 is subject to a narrow exception for archived content, but any actively used digital property — including older PDFs that remain linked from current pages — falls within scope.

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Where Chatham County and Savannah Government Sites Most Commonly Fail

Based on the types of failures that consistently appear across comparable government websites, Chatham County and Savannah are likely to face the following categories of issues:

Historic district permit portals. Savannah's Metropolitan Planning Commission and city permitting system handle a high volume of Certificate of Appropriateness applications and construction permits through web-based workflows. These portals frequently rely on form fields without proper labels, upload interfaces that screen readers cannot navigate, and status notifications that are not announced to assistive technology.

CAT transit trip planning and schedule information. Transit websites are among the most consequential for riders with visual impairments or motor disabilities. Dynamic schedule displays, real-time arrival widgets, and route map interfaces often fail keyboard navigation and screen reader compatibility requirements.

Tourism and event information from government DDA agencies. Savannah's Downtown Development Authority is a government entity covered under Title II. DDA-operated websites that promote events, business development, or tourism services must meet the same WCAG 2.1 AA standard as the city's primary domain. Event listings with inaccessible date pickers or image-only content are common failure patterns.

County commission and city council PDFs. Meeting agendas, minutes, and resolutions are typically distributed as PDFs. Untagged PDFs — those created by scanning paper documents or exported from software without accessibility settings enabled — are entirely inaccessible to screen readers. Government agencies routinely have hundreds of these documents linked from active pages.

Parking and revenue services portals. Payment interfaces and account management portals frequently use custom UI components that do not expose accessibility properties correctly. Users relying on keyboard navigation alone often cannot complete transactions.

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Compliance Timeline: Working Backward from April 2027

With the April 26, 2027 deadline now under a year away from mid-2026, the realistic timeline for Chatham County and City of Savannah agencies looks like this:

Agencies that begin this process in late 2026 will not have time to complete remediation before the deadline. The audit must come first — you cannot remediate what you have not measured.

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The Parallax WCAG Audit

Morton Technology Consulting's Parallax audit is a fixed-fee WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance audit designed for government agencies at exactly this stage of preparation.

What is included:

Fixed fee: $9,500. This price point fits within the written-quote threshold that most Georgia local government procurement offices apply to professional services contracts, which means agencies can move without a full RFP process.

A sample audit report is available at https://morton-digital.com/parallax-sample-audit. Full service details are at https://morton-digital.com/products/parallax.

To request a quote or ask questions, contact [email protected].

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

Sources

  1. [1] ADA.gov — DOJ Fact Sheet: New Rule on Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps — "State and local governments must make sure that their web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA"
  2. [2] U.S. Census Bureau — QuickFacts: Chatham County, Georgia — "Chatham County, Georgia population estimate"
  3. [3] ADA.gov — DOJ Title II Web Accessibility Final Rule: Transit Authority Coverage — "State and local governments and their instrumentalities, including transit authorities"
  4. [4] ADA.gov — DOJ Title II Web Accessibility Final Rule Overview — "A public entity that uses a third party's web content or mobile app to offer services to the public must ensure that such content or app is accessible"
  5. [5] Deque Systems — Automated Testing Study Identifies 57% of Digital Accessibility Issues — "automated testing can identify approximately 57% of accessibility issues"

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