Comment on FR Doc # 2026-07663

See attached file. RE: RIN 1190-AA82 To the Civil Rights Division: I am writing to express support for the ADA Final Rule deadline extension. I am also including comments for either clarification or further review of the Final Rule. 1. Operational Realities of Municipal IT Resources The Final Rule overestimates the specialized capacity of IT departments in municipalities with populations over 50,000. The mandate assumes the presence of dedicated accessibility teams; in reality, IT staff in mid-sized cities wear many hats. Shifting specialized IT personnel to conduct manual audits, remediate legacy assets, and train administrative staff across all city departments significantly strains critical municipal IT operations. Furthermore, the administrative staff who manage day-to-day web content lack the technical background to independently execute complex WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria. While they can readily implement basic standards like alternative text, tasks such as manual PDF tag reorganization or applying Success Criterion 3.2.1 ("On Focus") scripting are well beyond their technical scope. While I can’t speak for all municipalities, we are deeply committed to accessibility, the assumption that "large entities" possess the immediate, specialized resources to execute these highly technical requirements across all departments is misleading, making the extension a necessary relief. Making the mandate effective immediately in good faith for the disabled is supported with the caveat to allow safe-harbor provisions for content owners who are working hard to make all content accessible but not 99.9% there yet. 2. Chain of Custody and Liability for Third-Party Content The rule lacks sufficient clarity regarding the liability associated with third-party content. Standard municipal cybersecurity protocols prohibit granting external third parties direct publishing access to city websites. Consequently, city staff must act as the publishers for externally provided documents (such as PDFs from vendors, community partners, or other agencies). Because the city facilitates the publishing, we seemingly assume the burden of remediating third-party documents over which we have no original authoring control. If municipalities must take ownership of remediating all third-party content simply to maintain standard backend security protocols, the resource burden will force us to stop hosting vital community content altogether to avoid liability. I suggest relaxed guidelines or specific safe-harbor clarifications regarding externally authored PDFs that cities host strictly on behalf of third parties. 3. Proprietary Software Dependency and Interoperability Failures Currently, the burden of PDF remediation practically mandates the use of software to assist and increase efficiency of remediation tasks. This involves using proprietary software like Adobe Acrobat Pro, as competing alternatives lack the comprehensive tagging and remediation toolsets required to meet WCAG standards or are priced out of budget. This creates an environment where compliance is heavily dependent on a single vendor's proprietary ecosystem. We urge the Agency to consider providing federal funding, subsidized licenses, or government-developed remediation tools to assist municipalities in meeting these standards without being captive to commercial software limitations. More critically, in addition to manual compliance tasks, we are encountering significant interoperability issues that make compliance practically impossible to guarantee across all user environments. For example, when remediating a PDF form to meet WCAG 4.1.2 and 3.3.1, custom error handling and tooltips can be successfully programmed and verified via Assistive Technology (AT) in Acrobat Reader. However, when that same compliant PDF is opened in a native web browser and using that browser’s own PDF rendering engine (e.g., Chrome or Edge), the accessibility scripting fails. Because we cannot control the end-user's viewing environment, municipalities face strict liability for non-compliance when a file fails in a browser, even if it fully passes compliance in native software. We request that the DOJ issue guidance or safe-harbor provisions for content that passes compliance in standardized native applications but loses functionality due to third party browser rendering limitations. Please see attached exhibit demonstrating [illustrating] accessibility failure when transitioning from native software to browser environments. Thank you for your time, review, and consideration of these operational realities.