Timeline and next steps for Maryland agencies

November 2025

By the end of November:
- Complete your ROT analysis and identify AT LEAST 80% of documents that can be removed or archived.
- Be sure to follow your agency's record-keeping policies before removing (or archiving) electronic content.
- Complete Accessibility Training through Workday Learning.

December 2025

By the end of December:
- Identify all transactional documents and plan to remediate them as your first/highest priority.
- Plan staffing and resources for PDF remediation.
  - Go to the example staffing matrix for electronic document remediation.
- Request and complete training from OOA or MDoD on how to remediate complex PDFs.
- Start remediating your transactional and highest priority documents.
  - PDFs are a high priority for remediation. Refer to guidelines for PDFs.
- If needed, create an archive area on your site.
  - Move all documents you identified to be archived into the archive area.

January to March 2026

All remaining electronic document remediation must be completed in this period to ensure your agency meets the April 24th deadline.
1. Remediate all transactional documents.
2. Remediate all other electronic documents that will remain on the site (those that will not be moved into the archive area of your site).
3. Continue remediating all electronic documents until they are all accessible.

Early April 2026

Launch the archive section or area of your site, including all the documents you identified to be archived.
- The archive section/area must include language telling people how to request an accessible version of archived content. For example, the DoIT Archival statement.

April 24th, 2026, and Beyond

No new bad.
- Do not upload any new inaccessible documents to your website.
- Anything sent to DoIT Web Services for posting must be accessible.
Continue to remediate current conventional documents until at least 97% are made accessible.
Make sure all new staff joining your agency receive accessibility training if they will be creating electronic documents.

PDF Staffing Remediation Matrix

The following table helps identify when additional staffing is needed to support electronic document remediation. Note, additional staff can be sourced by DoIT but must be paid by the receiving agency.

# of PDFs Needing Remediation	Recommended Primary Action	Recommended Secondary Action
1-50 PDFs	Manual remediation by internal accessibility-trained staff	N/A
50-200 PDFs	Manual remediation by a small group of internal accessibility-trained staff	Consider the hiring of a document accessibility specialist (contractual) for 90 days.
201-500 PDFs	Hiring a document accessibility specialist or an intern to complete the document remediation effort.	Manual remediation by a larger group of internal accessibility-trained staff
500+ PDFs	Hiring a document accessibility specialist or an intern to complete the document remediation effort.	Manual remediation by a larger group of internal accessibility-trained staff

WCAG 2.1, Level AA Guidelines for PDFs

To comply with ADA Title II, electronic documents must meet the technical standards of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.

Remediation of PDFs is a high priority for the State of Maryland.

PDF content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for people with disabilities.
To achieve that, PDF content must include the use of proper tags, logical heading infrastructure, alternative text for non-text content, and logical reading order.
PDFs also must support keyboard navigation, have sufficient color contrast, use accessible forms, and well well-structured tables.
Explore specific WCAG 2.1 techniques for PDFs