For county and city clerks
CivicFormat™ makes the agendas, minutes and notices you post work with screen readers. AI tags every page. A person checks every page. You get back the PDF and a record of what was checked.
Agendas · minutes · public notices · meeting calendars | Built by Ethoic Inc in Knoxville, Tennessee
Before building anything, we pulled 21 public PDFs from a Tennessee county’s site and looked at what a screen reader would meet.
had no document title, the first thing a screen reader announces.
main meeting agendas came out of the agenda software with no tags at all.
agenda was a scanned copy with no text a screen reader could read.
Most of it starts upstream, in the software and scanners that make the PDFs. That’s why the fix has to happen every month, not once. How we measured this
A screen reader can only follow what has been labeled: which line is a heading, where a list starts, which row of a table names the columns, what a picture shows. Press Listen to hear the same page both ways.
“Sample County Commission Regular Meeting October 26 2026 6 PM Call to Order Invocation Pledge of Allegiance Roll Call Consent Agenda…”
“Heading level 1, Sample County Commission.”
“Heading level 2, Call to order.”
“Heading level 2, Consent agenda.”
Listeners can jump from section to section, the way sighted readers skim.
“a. Invocation b. Pledge of Allegiance c. Roll call 2. Consent agenda…”
“List, 3 items.”
“a. Invocation.” “b. Pledge of Allegiance.” “c. Roll call.”
“End of list.”
Listeners know how many items there are and where the list ends.
“January 5 12 February 2 9 March 2 9 April 6 13…”
“Table, 3 columns.”
“Month, January. Work session, 5. Meeting, 12.”
A header row tells the listener what each number means.
Nothing at all. The letterhead with the commissioners’ names and phone numbers is one picture, so it’s skipped.
“Image, Sample County seal.”
“Commissioners: District 1…” read out as text.
When a picture holds words, like a letterhead, the words get read.
Sample wording for illustration, spoken by your device’s built-in voice. Real screen readers sound different, and each phrases things a little differently.
Nothing changes in how you make your documents. CivicFormat sits between making them and posting them.
Send the PDFs you’re about to post, just as your agenda software makes them.
AI labels the headings, lists, tables, images and reading order on every page.
A person checks every page against a written standard and fixes what’s wrong.
You get back the tagged PDF and its record, ready to post.
The AI doesn’t get the last word. Our software points the reviewer to the spots most likely to be wrong, like text inside a picture, a table with no header row or a skipped heading level. The reviewer judges each one against a written standard. A page isn’t done until every spot has an answer.
Tags go into your original PDF. We don’t retype, reflow or replace what’s on the page, so it looks just as it did.
Every document comes back with a record: which spots were checked, what was fixed, by whom and when.
A new agenda comes every month. CivicFormat is a monthly service for the documents you actually post.
Each file also runs through veraPDF, an open-source PDF/UA checker, which catches the structural rules a program can check.
In 2024 the Department of Justice adopted WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard for state and local government websites under Title II of the ADA, and that includes the documents they post. A 2026 rule moved the dates back a year. Most documents posted before the deadline are exempt unless people still use them to get a service, so the work that matters is what you post next month, and every month after.
A summary, not legal advice. Ask your attorney how the rule applies to you. Sources: DOJ fact sheet on the 2024 rule · 2026 extension in the Federal Register
Counties, cities and other governments serving 50,000 people or more.
Governments serving fewer than 50,000 people, and special districts.
The standard the rule names for web pages and the documents posted on them.
Most archived documents are exempt, so the job is the steady flow of new ones.
In 2025 the Federal Trade Commission ordered an AI accessibility company to pay $1 million over claims that its tool could make any website meet accessibility guidelines. Software alone can’t promise that, and we won’t. AI does the first pass, a person checks it, and the record says exactly what was checked, so you can answer questions with facts.
Read the FTC’s announcementEvery page is checked by a person before it goes back to you.
Every spot is judged against a written standard, not a hunch.
Your text is left exactly as you wrote it.
Public documents only. We work on what you’re about to post anyway.
County and city clerks, boards and commissions that post their own agendas and notices, and the web or IT teams who put those PDFs on the site. Smaller governments have until April 26, 2028, and starting early spreads the work out.
No tool or service can honestly promise that for you. What we promise is the work: every page tagged, every page checked by a person against a written standard, and a record of it. Your attorney decides how the rule applies to you.
Yes. Software points the reviewer to the spots most likely to be wrong, and the reviewer answers each one: looks right, or needs fix. A page can’t be marked done until every spot on it has an answer.
No. Tags are added to your original PDF. The words and the look of the page stay as they were. If a picture holds words, like a letterhead, we add those words as text a screen reader can read, without changing the picture.
A scan has to have its text recognized before it can be tagged. We’re building that step now. If many of your documents are scans, tell us, and we’ll start with yours.
The rule exempts most documents posted before the deadline unless people still use them to get a service. We start with new documents and can work through older ones people still rely on.
We use it to reply about your pilot, and for nothing else. No newsletters, no ads, no selling it. The short version is on our privacy page.
Monthly, by the number of pages you post. We’re setting prices with our first pilot partners.
Tell us where your government posts its agendas. We’ll tag one public agenda from your site and show you what a screen reader hears, before and after.
CivicFormat / Review