Regarding the Creation of Inaccessible State Government Documents and Forms

WHEREAS, for many years blind citizens have been unable to obtain most forms and other government documents in an accessible format; and

WHEREAS many of these documents are being sent out in print making it difficult for the blind to establish a level of independence due to the inability to complete these forms without sighted assistance; and

WHEREAS, many documents sent to blind people from state agencies are time-sensitive and have severe consequences attached to a missed deadline; and

WHEREAS, PDF documents, depending on how they are created, may be inaccessible to the blind who use specialized software, and the remediation of these documents is both costly and time-consuming; and

WHEREAS, PDF documents cannot be completed on mobile devices using screen-access software nor be made compliant with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA; and

WHEREAS, HTML5-based formats render all documents accessible regardless of device; and

WHEREAS, all citizens benefit from documents that are properly formatted and easy to read on any device: now, therefore

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Kentucky in Convention assembled this 13th day of October, 2018, in the City of Louisville, Kentucky, that we call upon all state agencies to adopt policies requiring that all documents and forms be produced in HTML5-based formats by December 31, 2019; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon these agencies to replace or convert all currently used forms or documents to the HTML5-based format and that this replacement or conversion process commence on or before January 1, 2020.