Budget Planning

FY23-24 Accessibility Budget Planning and Spending

Accessibility budget dollars will be arriving to your agency budget offices starting July 1, 2023. Agencies should work with their own budget offices to start Fiscal year budgeting for testing, remediation, staff, and other accessibility needs (like training and accessibility software).

• There will be a single line item in your budget for accessibility.

• Agency staff should reach out to their budget directors with questions about funding. 

• Agencies should use their IT Accessibility Adoption Plans to help with budget requests. 

• Any additional funding needed should be requested in future budget sessions.

  • In your request, indicate the full amount of funding needed to be compliant with HB21-1110  and include the additional 10% to be set aside for future replacement costs (per OSPB Budget Guidance).

  • While OIT will provide guidance on the request, specific questions related to finances should go to OSPB through your budget team (similar to other budget requests).

  • Previous Draft Language To Consider For Future Budget Requests

• OIT's FY 2023-24 Decision Item - Accessibility Testing and Remediation - IT Capital

• IT Accessibility Summary by Agency Table

• OIT's Budget Amendment FY23: Technology Accessibility Program

• Governor’s Budget Submission: Summary of OIT’s Technology Accessibility Program Request

Staff Hiring Using the Accessibility Budget

The budget for staff is not called out specifically in the budget so agencies will want to plan for those positions within the total budget dollars they receive.

Staff hiring for agencies should be non-technical roles as technical roles are required to stay within OIT. Non-technical positions include roles such as project and program managers, communications roles, web content editors, and accessibility coordinators. Technical roles that should go through OIT are developers and testers.

Focus on your total funding amount and rethink as an agency how you want to spend those dollars. This should be a collaborative discussion with your working group and include your budget office. The agencies are able to spend the funds at their discretion and they aren’t beholden to the line item amounts indicated in their original budget request. (e.g., FTEs, testing, remediation, etc.).

If before the end of FY25-26, agencies want more funds they will need to submit a Decision Item during the normal budget process.

For help with hiring accessibility positions and defining those roles check out the Position Descriptions and job postings for accessibility-related roles (Sheets).

Estimating For Testing and Remediation

Manual Testing Estimation Guidance for Websites

Use the following criteria to help determine the estimated hours needed to manually test websites:

• • Priority (Low, Medium, High): 

    • It is recommended that all high and medium-priority sites are manually tested regardless of complexity. 

    • Low priority, "Simple" websites may not need to be included in your manual testing budget for websites. These sites will require the site owner to manually test using the tools that are available to the state.

  • The complexity of the site will determine the size of the testing effort:

    • Simple / S / 20 hours: informational content with simple images (e.g. logos, icons), simple search, no video or audio, very few PDFs if any, no live updated content embeds (e.g. Twitter, Facebook), no e-commerce or custom forms

      • E.g., This website, IT Accessibility Planning Guide

    • Moderate/ M / 40 hours: more complex than a simple site with media (video, audio, images, PDFs) e-commerce and more complex forms, simple search, media and limited live updated content embeds (e.g. data studio, calendar, Twitter, Facebook).

      • E.g., Colorado Broadband Office website

    • Complex / L / 80 hours: Large sites with dynamic content like maps, complex forms, e-commerce transactions, and other embedded applications (APIs), advanced search functionality

      • E.g., Colorado Department of Transportation website

View OIT's Accessibility Plan list of websites for an example on how the number of hours and cost for website testing were calculated.

Remediation Guidance for Websites:

• Website platform issues will need to be fixed by the vendors. OIT is working with SIPA/Tyler Technologies (colorado.gov platform provider) to remediate colorado.gov platform issues. 

  • • Please share your colorado.gov manual testing reports with the TAP office team: oit_accessibility@state.co.us

• Agency needs for website remediation will vary. Agencies should consider the following when deciding if additional resources are needed for website remediation:

  • • The capacity of your communications team

    • How complex the remediation is

    • The volume of the work

    • The skill set of the team that will be doing the website remediation 

• Agencies may decide to use existing staff to remediate website content. 

Manual Testing Guidance for Applications

To determine the estimated hours needed to manually test applications

• • Use the Apps tab on your IT Accessibility Adoption Plan to estimate the manual testing hours needed.

  • One way to categorize the applications is to use a scale for the size of the application (such as XS, S, M, L). You can then use the following testing hour estimates (which are in general about half of the hours needed to remediate):

    • • XS = 20 hours

      • S = 40 hours

      • M= 80 hours

      • L = 100 hours

  • If needed, you can use 80 hours of manual testing time per website or application as a general default.

  • To calculate the funding needs, take the total manual testing hours needed and multiply by an average $125/hr.

Remediation Guidance for Applications:

• To determine the estimated hours needed to remediate  applications, use the Apps tab on your IT Accessibility Adoption Plan to estimate remediation hours needed.

• You will want to categorize the applications to better estimate (such as XS, S, M, L). Then use the following remediation hour estimates:

  • • XS = 40 hours

    • S = 80 hours

    • M= 160 hours

    • L = 320 hours

• To calculate the funding needs for remediation, take the total remediation hours needed and multiply by an average $125/hr.

  • See CDLE's budget estimates for reference

Learn How to Use OIT's Enterprise Agreement Accessibility Vendors.