Web Governance for Cities, Counties, and State Agencies
Residents see one government. The web shows twenty.
A resident looking for a permit, a court date, or a polling place does not care which department runs which site. They expect it to work. Behind the scenes, many jurisdictions run dozens of properties: a main site, department sites, vendor portals, campaign microsites, and a few nobody remembers launching.
Why government estates sprawl
- Departmental budgets. Parks, libraries, and public safety often fund their own sites.
- Vendors. Payment, permitting, and agenda platforms each bring a web presence.
- Elected-office turnover. New leadership, new site, old one left online.
- Emergencies. Fast-launch sites for one event that never get retired.
Title II puts a date on it
On April 20, 2026, the Department of Justice extended the Title II web and mobile app compliance dates. State and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more now have until April 26, 2027. Entities under 50,000, and every special district government, now have until April 26, 2028. The standard is unchanged: WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Source: the DOJ interim final rule extending the Title II compliance dates (91 FR 20902).
Many cities and counties fall under the April 2027 date. Smaller towns and every special district fall under April 2028. In both cases the question comes before remediation: which sites are ours?
What governance looks like for government
A complete inventory
Every site on the jurisdiction’s domains, with department owner and platform.
Scores across the estate
Accessibility, security, performance, and uptime in one view, so the worst problems surface first.
Policy and alerts
Rules that apply across departments, with alerts when a site goes down or falls behind on updates.
A sanctioned path for new sites
Starter kits give departments a starting site that is governed from launch.
Where Accorbis fits
Accorbis is a standalone web governance platform. It gives one dashboard across the WordPress, Drupal, and custom sites an organization already runs. It is not a CMS and not a hosting company.
Sites stay on the platforms departments already use. Read more about how Accorbis works. Hosting is a separate line, only if you choose it. Custom organization kits and implementation come from your implementation partner.
A hypothetical: the election-season microsite
Imagine a county elections office that launched a separate site years ago for a ballot measure, hosted by a vendor. The measure passed, the site stayed up, and its polling information is now out of date. A resident searching for where to vote finds the old site. Nobody in the county’s web team knew it was still live.
A current inventory with owners and end dates would have caught it.
A checklist for a government web estate
- List every domain the jurisdiction owns, including department and program domains.
- Identify vendor platforms that publish on your domains: payments, permits, agendas, alerts.
- Assign a department owner to every site.
- Record which sites carry required public information.
- Ask vendors for current accessibility conformance reports.
- Set a policy for retiring event and campaign sites.
- Publish an accessibility statement with a working contact.
Where to start: decision criteria
- Required public information first: meetings, permits, payments, elections, emergency information.
- Sites residents cannot avoid: anything tied to a legal deadline or service.
- Vendor platforms: start contract conversations early, because vendor fixes take time.
- Everything else, ranked by traffic and score.
Working with vendors
Many government services run on vendor platforms. Ask each vendor for a current accessibility conformance report against WCAG 2.1 AA, a list of known issues, and a timeline for fixes. Put those requests in writing, and raise them at renewal. A governance dashboard can show you how vendor-hosted pages on your domains are performing, but only the vendor can change their platform.
What to report to council or commissioners
Keep it short and factual: how many sites the jurisdiction runs, how many have named owners, which sites carry required public information, the status of vendor conformance reports, and the open high-priority issues. Present scan scores as signals of where work is needed, not as proof of conformance.
Frequently asked questions
Can Accorbis govern vendor-hosted sites?
Discovery and monitoring work on public sites on your domains regardless of host. Fixing a vendor’s platform still needs the vendor.
Do departments need to change CMS?
No. WordPress, Drupal, and custom sites stay where they are.
Is this a replacement for an accessibility audit?
No. Automated scanning shows where to look and tracks progress. Manual testing and fixes are still needed.
Can we work with an agency on this?
Accorbis is standalone software, and other agencies can sell it, as the page on how Accorbis works explains. Ask your agency, or start with a working session.
How do we handle sites owned by separately elected offices?
Include them in the inventory and agree ownership in writing. Governance works best when every office follows the same baseline.
Does Accorbis store resident data from our sites?
Ask for details on data handling in your working session, and review the security and data processing documents linked in the accorbis.com footer.
How do we start if our team is small?
Start with the inventory and the sites carrying required public information. A small team with a clear list can make steady progress.
Do special districts need the same governance as a large county?
The principles are the same: know your sites, name owners, and review regularly. A small district with one site can do this with a short checklist rather than a platform.
Next step
Schedule a 30-minute working session against your jurisdiction’s domains.
