2026-05-17 · 5 min read

WCAG 2.1 Audit Services for Florida Government: What to Expect and What to Ask

# WCAG 2.1 Audit Services for Florida Government: What to Expect and What to Ask

The April 26, 2027 DOJ Title II compliance deadline is eleven months away. Florida government agencies that haven't started a professional WCAG audit are now in a window where procurement and the audit itself must run concurrently to reach compliance on time. Scoping calls, vendor vetting, contract execution, and the audit engagement — including remediation planning — can easily consume four to six months. That leaves five to seven months for your IT team to remediate findings before the deadline.

This post covers what a professional audit delivers, what questions to ask vendors before signing anything, and what a realistic cost looks like for a Florida government entity.

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What a Professional WCAG 2.1 AA Audit Delivers

Not all audits are equal. A professional audit suitable for DOJ compliance purposes should deliver:

1. Representative page sample — For most Florida government websites, a 200-page sample covers the major content types, interactive components, PDFs, and transactional flows. The auditor should document how the sample was selected, not simply pick easy pages.

2. Manual testing with NVDA and VoiceOver — Automated scanners catch approximately 57% of WCAG failures (Deque research). The remaining issues — keyboard traps, screen reader announcements, focus order problems, cognitive load failures — require a human tester operating assistive technology. Any audit that relies on automated tools alone does not meet DOJ requirements.

3. Findings report organized by WCAG success criterion — Results should be mapped to specific success criteria (e.g., 1.1.1 Non-text Content, 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value) with severity ratings — critical, major, and minor — so your development team knows what to fix first.

4. Remediation roadmap with assignable tasks — A findings list without remediation guidance shifts all the analysis burden to your team. A professional audit translates findings into actionable tasks that can be assigned to developers or content managers.

5. DOJ-compliant accessibility statement draft — The DOJ rule requires agencies to publish an accessibility statement on their website. Your auditor should provide a draft you can adapt and publish, not leave you to write it from scratch.

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What to Ask a WCAG Auditor Before Engaging

Five questions that separate qualified vendors from box-checkers:

1. How many pages does the audit cover, and how is the sample selected? The answer should include a documented methodology — not "we'll pick a representative set" without criteria.

2. What assistive technology do your testers use? The minimum acceptable answer is NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS/iOS. Dragon NaturallySpeaking for motor-impaired testing is a meaningful differentiator. Any auditor who can't name specific tools is using scanners only.

3. Does the deliverable include a remediation roadmap, or just a findings list? A findings list is a starting point, not a compliance plan. You need prioritized, assignable tasks.

4. Will you provide an accessibility statement I can publish? This is a required element of DOJ compliance. Your vendor should include it in scope.

5. What is your timeline from signed engagement to final report delivery? For a 200-page audit, four to eight weeks is realistic for a thorough manual review. Promises of one-week turnarounds on full audits are a signal that the work is automated.

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Red Flags in a WCAG Audit Engagement

Automated-only scanning. Any vendor promising WCAG compliance from an automated tool alone is selling snake oil. Axe-core, WAVE, and Lighthouse are valuable components of an audit workflow — not substitutes for manual testing. If the deliverable is an automated scan report with a compliance badge, it will not satisfy DOJ requirements.

Vague scope with no page count. "We'll review your website" is not a scope. Before signing, confirm the number of pages, the selection methodology, and what content types are included (PDFs, forms, video players, third-party widgets).

No mention of screen reader testing. If a vendor's proposal or sales conversation never mentions NVDA or VoiceOver, assume they're not doing it.

Pricing inconsistent with stated scope. A 200-page manual audit requires significant tester time. A quote well below $3,000 for that volume means corners are being cut somewhere — either the page count is real but the testing isn't manual, or the page count is not what it appears.

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What Does a WCAG Audit Cost for a Florida Government Website?

For a full breakdown, see What Does a WCAG Audit Cost for a Government Website?. The short version:

• Automated-only scanning tools: $0–$500/month — do not satisfy DOJ requirements for manual testing
• Small manual audits (25–50 pages): $3,000–$8,000 — appropriate for microsites or single departments
• 200-page professional government audit: $9,500–$25,000 — the correct tier for most Florida municipality and county websites
• Large enterprise engagements: $25,000–$100,000+ — for sprawling multi-department portals with extensive transactional functionality

The $9,500–$25,000 range is where most Florida local government agencies should budget. The scope and deliverables within that range vary significantly by vendor, which is why the questions above matter.

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The Florida Procurement Context

Most Florida municipalities, counties, and special districts operate with written-quote thresholds between $5,000 and $25,000, depending on their charter and purchasing policy. A $9,500 engagement falls within that threshold for most jurisdictions — meaning an IT director or ADA coordinator can award directly on written quotes without conducting a full competitive RFP.

This is not the case for enterprise-scale engagements priced above $25,000. If your jurisdiction has a lower threshold or if the engagement scope grows — phased audits across multiple departments, for example — confirm procurement requirements with your purchasing office before beginning vendor conversations.

The eleven-month timeline also matters here: a full RFP process typically runs sixty to ninety days, which is time you may not have available if you're trying to complete audit and remediation before the April 2027 deadline.

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The Parallax WCAG Audit

Morton Technology Consulting, based in Tallahassee, FL, offers the Parallax WCAG audit at a fixed fee of $9,500.

The engagement covers 200 representative pages, selected using a documented sampling methodology that includes your major content types, interactive components, forms, and PDFs. Testing uses NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS, combined with an axe-core automated scan for baseline coverage. Every finding is mapped to its WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion with a severity rating (critical, major, or minor) and a plain-English remediation note. The final deliverable includes a prioritized remediation roadmap formatted for assignment to your development or content team, and a DOJ-compliant accessibility statement draft you can publish on your site.

We're a Florida-based firm, which means we understand the local government procurement context — written-quote thresholds, the DOJ Title II timeline, and the practical constraints IT departments in Florida municipalities and counties are working within. We can scope the engagement to fit your digital footprint in an initial call; if your site exceeds 200 pages, we'll discuss a phased approach rather than arbitrarily cut coverage.

A sample completed audit report is available at https://morton-digital.com/parallax-sample-audit. To schedule a scoping call or request a written quote for your jurisdiction, visit https://morton-digital.com/products/parallax or email [email protected].

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*Morton Technology Consulting LLC, Tallahassee, FL. Florida government WCAG 2.1 compliance audits for the April 2027 deadline. [email protected]*

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