Volusia County Web Accessibility Policy

Purpose and Scope of the Policy

The County of Volusia (the County) is committed to the universal accessibility of information contained on its website (the Website). The design of the site is optimized to ensure broad readability and usability, which include accessibility criteria and features for people with disabilities, so they may be able to see, understand, navigate, interact, and contribute effectively.

The County uses the Section 508 standards and, with respect to access by blind or low-sighted persons, WCAG 2.0, Level AA as guidelines (the Guidelines) for pages within our website. As the Website is currently a combination of new and old technologies, and new and existing content, we are actively engaged in the ongoing process of testing, developing, and updating our website for compliance with these accessibility standards.

Policy for Website Accessibility

It shall be the policy of the County that the Website be designed to be accessible to and usable by people with disabilities. The County recognizes the importance of making its digital government services available to the largest possible audience. The Website shall be coded to comply with the Guidelines.

It is the responsibility of the department’s and agency’s Webmasters to become familiar with the County guidelines for achieving these standards and to apply these standards in designing and creating any official Website content.

Accessibility Assistance

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of County of Volusia websites. Please let us know if you encounter any accessibility barriers:

• Phone: 386-736-5922
• E-mail: access@volusia.org
• Postal address: 119 W. Indiana Ave. Deland, FL 32720 attn: Accessibility Coordinator

Under Florida law, Email addresses are public record. Please do not send electronic mail if you do not wish to have your Email address released in response to a public records request. Instead, please contact us by phone or in writing.

To enable us to respond in a manner that will be of most help to you, please indicate:

• The nature of the accessibility need
• Your preferred format (electronic format, large print, etc.).
• The web address of the requested material
• Your full contact information, so we can reach you if additional information is required.

Limitations of this Policy

Individuals with (or without) disabilities access the Web with widely varying sets of capabilities, software, and hardware. While this policy does provide the standard for individuals with disabilities to access Web-based information, this policy cannot anticipate every accessibility need, due to known limitations of existing technology. There may be other circumstances, independent of technology that may limit accessibility of County websites.

While every effort will be made, it is understood that creating accessible formats for some documentation and graphical renderings maintained by the County may be technologically unfeasible, impractical, or creates an undue hardship to the County’s operations.

Some existing content may not be in compliance, and some content may meet only the minimum required compliance standards. This will be resolved as departments and others update their existing websites and continue efforts to monitor and maintain acceptable compliance levels. However, this may not include third party software/tools, widgets, Add-ins, APIs, etc. which the County does not maintain or control.