The method, applied · Virginia accessibility

A chain that breaks between the statute and the standard

Every Virginia public entity now rests on an authority chain that runs from a federal statute through a regulation to an incorporated standard, with a state act alongside it. Three of the institutions we have read cite the wrong version, contradict themselves, or cannot say which date applies. This is the same tracing work, in one landscape.

Worked example · the accessibility chain · sources retrieved Aug 6, 2026

1 · Statute: ADA Title II. Public entities, in force since 1990. Section 504 alongside it for any recipient of federal assistance.
2 · Regulation: 28 C.F.R. § 35.200. Sets a technical standard for the existing duty, by incorporation rather than by restatement.
3 · Standard incorporated: WCAG 2.1 Levels A and AA. Adopted as published. An entity may choose how it conforms, not what conformance means.
4 · Dates, amended: 91 Fed. Reg. 20902, April 20, 2026. Interim final rule, still interim. Moves the dates to 2027 and 2028.
5 · State act alongside: Va. Code § 2.2-3500 et seq., as amended by HB 2541. Its dates sit in the enactment clause. Whether the federal amendment moved them turns on whether § 2.2-3502 cross-references dynamically.Chain contested

Every document here is live, correctly issued, and correctly citing the one below it. The problem is only visible by reading all five together, and it decides which year an institution is planning against.

Illustrative of method. Authorities and their status should be verified before being relied upon.

What a board, an auditor or a civil rights inquiry asks, in this order

When is our compliance date?: Commonly misread. The rule sets the date by population, and an institution has none of its own. Size is not the test.
On what authority, and who decided?: Contested. Whether the federal extension moved the Virginia dates has two defensible readings and no settled answer.
What do we actually own?: Usually unknown. Catalogs, portals, licensed platforms and the software individual staff adopted. Rarely inventoried.
What are we doing about it?: Cannot be answered until the first three are, and every cost estimate depends on them.

None of these needs a test result. They are documentary, they are answerable now, and they are what an inquiry asks for first.

Based on published positions at three Virginia public institutions, reviewed August 2026.

The obligation

Two clocks, and a question nobody has settled

28 C.F.R. § 35.200 requires web content and mobile applications of public entities to conform to WCAG 2.1 Levels A and AA. An interim final rule published April 20, 2026 moved the compliance dates to April 26, 2027 and April 26, 2028. That rule remains interim.

Virginia adds its own. The Information Technology Access Act, as amended by HB 2541 (2025 Acts of Assembly, ch. 571), names libraries, school divisions and public institutions of higher education as covered entities in their own right, with its own procurement obligations at § 2.2-3503.

Its dates sit in the enactment clauses rather than in the Code. The third enactment applies the act to covered entities of 50,000 or more, institutions of higher education and state public bodies beginning April 24, 2026. The fourth applies it to special district governments and covered entities below 50,000 beginning April 26, 2027. A year earlier than the federal dates in each band, and for a large public body the earlier date has already passed.

Two things in those clauses are worth noting. The fourth defines special district governments by reference to 28 C.F.R. § 35.104, so Virginia adopts the federal definition rather than writing its own. And the fifth applies the act to a local school district as it applies to the locality within which the district is located, which settles in state law the question the federal rule reaches by asking whose instrumentality a division is.

The unsettled question

One reading holds that the Virginia dates sit in session law, which a federal department cannot amend. The other holds that § 2.2-3502 makes a dynamic cross-reference to the federal rule, which now reads 2027 and 2028. Counsel reading the statute will see the second.

One data point rather than an answer. On April 28, 2026, eight days after the federal rule issued, the Virginia IT Agency published contract clause guidance stating April 24, 2026 and April 26, 2027 as the operative dates. It does not mention the federal extension. Whether that reflects a considered position or a document not yet revisited cannot be told from the document itself.

We do not resolve it, and no outside party should. What we produce is the record of which reading you adopted, on what basis, and who approved it. On a contested point, the documented decision is the asset.

The rule behind the dates

Which population applies to you

The compliance date turns on a number, and the number is not the one most institutions expect. It is not how many people you serve, and it is not the size of the community around you. If you do not have a Census population of your own, it is the Census population of the government your institution belongs to.

The rule is the same for every public entity. The Department of Justice applies it to a county police department, a city police department, a county library, an individual school, and a state university alike. Where an entity has no population of its own, size is inherited rather than measured. The Department is most explicit about this in the education context, where it states that population is determined not by the size of the student body but by the Census population of the jurisdiction the entity is an instrumentality of. The same logic reaches a library, a police department, a parks authority, or a regional body.

These are the federal rules, set out in 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.104 and 35.200. Every worked example below is provided by the Department of Justice. Virginia sets its own dates a year earlier in each band. Those are set out in the two clocks section above, and which of them governs is the question nobody has settled.

Rule 1

You have your own Census population

Counties and cities. Use the most recent decennial Census figure for your own jurisdiction, which is the 2020 count. The annual estimates the Census Bureau publishes between decennial counts do not apply, so a locality that has grown past 50,000 since 2020 still uses its 2020 figure.

Rule 2

You are an independent school district

Use the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, not the decennial Census. Despite the name, that program also publishes population estimates for school districts, and it is the only Census source that does: the decennial Census produces no figure for them. Income and poverty do not enter the determination.

Rule 3

You have no Census population, but the government you belong to does

Use the combined decennial populations of those governments. This is the rule that reaches libraries, school divisions, colleges, departments, and regional bodies.

Rule 4

You are a special district government

Population does not apply. Your federal compliance date is April 26, 2028, whatever your size. Virginia's fourth enactment reaches special district governments a year earlier, on April 26, 2027, and adopts this same § 35.104 definition.

What a special district government is

A public entity, other than a county, municipality, township, or independent school district, authorized by state law to provide one function or a limited number of functions, with enough administrative and fiscal autonomy to be a separate government, and whose population is not calculated by the Census Bureau in either the decennial Census or the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. The Department's examples are a mosquito abatement district, a utility district, a transit authority, a water and sewer board, and a zoning district.

This status overrides population entirely. A special district government serving 300,000 people still has a compliance date of April 26, 2028.

The threshold is a population of 50,000. At or above it the compliance date is April 26, 2027; below it, April 26, 2028. The Department of Justice calls these large and small public entities, borrowing the Regulatory Flexibility Act's definition of a small governmental jurisdiction.

Worked examples · every one from the Department's own guidance

A county police department, county population 5,000: Instrumentality of the county. Compliance date April 26, 2028.
A city police department, city population 200,000: Instrumentality of the city. Compliance date April 26, 2027.
A county library: Instrumentality of the county. The county population decides.
An independent school district, 60,000 residents: The Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates figure. Compliance date April 26, 2027, whatever the enrollment.
An individual county school: Instrumentality of the county. Compliance date April 26, 2027 if the county population exceeds 50,000.
A state university in a town of 20,000, state population 5 million: Instrumentality of the State. Compliance date April 26, 2027.
A county community college, county population 35,000: Instrumentality of the county. Compliance date April 26, 2028.

Applied

What this means in Virginia

Departments and authorities of a county or city take that locality's decennial figure. The Department's own examples are police departments, but the rule is the same for a parks authority, a housing authority, or any other body that is an instrumentality of one local government.

Public library systems take the population of the locality they are an instrumentality of. The Department names this case directly.

School divisions take the population of the parent locality, not the enrollment. A division serving a locality above 50,000 has a compliance date of April 26, 2027.

Community colleges turn on whose instrumentality they are, and Virginia's answer appears to be the Commonwealth. Each college holds its own Commonwealth agency number, appears under the Secretariat of Education in the Executive Branch, and is reported to the General Assembly on the Commonwealth Human Capital Management System. On the Department's state-university example, that appears to give them a compliance date of April 26, 2027.

Regional bodies are the hard case. Where a body is an instrumentality of several localities, rule 3 combines their populations, which can move an entity that looks small across the threshold. Whether such a body is instead a special district government depends on its governing agreement.

Somebody has to decide

The determination is not difficult, but it is a determination. Somebody has to make it, record the basis, and be able to produce it. Most institutions have not, and the two compliance dates are a year apart.

What we produce

A compliance position

Four documents that answer the first three questions in writing, in a form a board or an auditor can act on without translation.

Signed record

Compliance date determination

Which federal date applies and why, including the population basis and the reasoning. Every plan and budget rests on this answer, and the rule is commonly misread.

Signed record

Virginia dates determination

Both readings, the one adopted, the basis, the approver, and the triggers that would cause it to be revisited.

Maintainable register

Digital estate inventory

What you own or provide by arrangement, with owner, built or bought, renewal date, and any conformance evidence already held.

Two pages

Position summary

The three determinations and the inventory, in a form that goes to a board or a cabinet without translation.

What this is not

Not a conformance determination. No page rendering, keyboard testing, or assistive technology testing. Automated checks may be run to orient the reading, reported with the tool, the ruleset and the date, but they cannot tell you whether anything conforms.
Not remediation, and no conformance claim or certification of any kind.
Not legal advice. The determinations are drafted for your counsel to review and approve. The approval is theirs.
Not a substitute for a technical assessment. Knowing what you own and when it falls due is what makes one scopeable. Whether it conforms is a separate question, a separate procurement, and in most cases better suited to a specialist testing firm.

Where the analysis comes from

Three references, one shared federal layer

We do not maintain the authorities. We maintain the trace of them, kept current rather than assembled per engagement. The federal analysis is written once and shared; the surface, the stacking obligations and the procurement cycle differ by entity type.

KAI-GOV-501

Virginia library accessibility

Consortial catalogs, discovery layers, licensed databases and lending applications: systems a library cannot remediate and remains answerable for.

KAI-GOV-502

Virginia school divisions

A division is not a special district government, so its date follows the locality's population. Section 504 and IDEA stack on the same systems.

KAI-GOV-503

Virginia higher education

Institution size does not set the date. The widest estate in the landscape, and the least centrally controlled.

Accommodation responds to one person after they disclose. The obligation is to remove the barrier in advance.

Scope and price

Fixed scope, fixed price, a deliverable you keep

$6,000 · one to two weeks

Accessibility Position Assessment

The compliance date determination, the determination of which reading of the Virginia dates you have adopted, an inventory of the digital estate, and a position summary. Answers when it falls due, on what authority, and over what.

$7,000 · two weeks

Conformance Readiness Review

For a public body that has already published an accessibility statement. What it claims, which authority it names, whether that authority sets your obligation, and whether your stated scope reaches the systems your users sign in to.

A short pre-assessment, before anything else

We read your published accessibility position the way an external reviewer will, from public sources only, and tell you where it and the obligation diverge. It is documentary, it takes us a morning, and the findings are useful whether or not we work together.

Ask for a pre-assessment