Quarterly Accessibility Program Status Update, July 2025
Date: July 10, 2025
Executive Summary
With the July 1st implementation of HB24-1454, SIPA has concentrated heavily on the accessibility of the Colorado.gov platform. A significant number of accessibility issues were fixed in May and June, however SIPA and other government customers have since identified and documented large numbers of previously unknown issues. The remediation of the newly identified issues is ongoing.
SIPA is becoming more involved in the technical review and oversight of the Colorado.gov portal provider’s assessment and reporting of digital accessibility issues. Increased collaboration between SIPA and the Governor’s Office of Information Technology is intended to produce greater accountability and refinement of processes that will ultimately result in increased digital accessibility of platform websites.
As the SIPA 2025 User Conference nears in the coming months, SIPA has selected a location for the event that scored high marks for physical and digital accessibility. Additionally, SIPA has chosen a conference management app and has established processes for attendees to request accessible accommodations in advance of the event.
Internal training of SIPA employees on digital accessibility topics has continued in Q2, however the cadence has been reduced from what was initially anticipated. This effort has helped SIPA employees to develop more awareness and knowledge of digital accessibility topics by simplifying complex technical topics and fostering an interactive and engaging learning environment.
Colorado.gov CMS Platform
During this reporting period, 28 known accessibility issues were successfully fixed, while 45 new accessibility issues were identified and documented.
On May 8th, SIPA prevented the deployment of a scheduled release due to concerns related to quality quality and whether code packaged for deployment adequately addressed the issues that were intended to be fixed. This pause allowed the portal provider to more thoroughly vet changes before deploying them to the production environment.
There are currently 71 accessibility issues documented in the Jira helpdesk system, which is a historically high number. The status of documented issues related to the accessibility of the Colorado.gov platform can be found in the table below.
| Status | Count | Percent of Total |
| To-Do (Unassigned) | 43 | 60.6% |
| Assigned Developer | 1 | 1.4% |
| In Development | 23 | 32.4% |
| QA Review | 4 | 5.6% |
Accessibility Program Policy and Compliance
SIPA's digital accessibility coordinator has assumed responsibility for reviewing and accepting the monthly and quarterly accessibility reports from the portal provider, thus verifying compliance with contractual requirements. SIPA will continue to work with the portal provider to further refine and improve reporting capabilities and compliance in the coming months.
In June, SIPA contracted external digital accessibility resources as part of a year-end project to review the most recent quarterly accessibility scan results and identify potential platform issues. This effort identified only two platform accessibility issues that were previously unknown.
SIPA is currently working with state agency partners and the portal provider to develop a policy around the use of custom CSS and JavaScript code. This system, known as asset injector, allows site owners to implement code changes for purposes of accessibility remediation and creating custom layouts that are specific to their websites. It is SIPA’s goal to balance competing interests of government employees, the portal provider, and the need for immediate accessibility remediation by website owners.
SIPA User Conference
After evaluating several potential locations for the 2025 SIPA User Conference, Empower Field at Mile High was chosen as the conference venue. Among locations that were considered, Empower Field scored high marks for physical and digital accessibility, which were important factors in choosing a location.
Additionally, SIPA has created a process by which conference participants may request accessible accommodations at the time of registration. All requests will be managed by SIPA’s digital accessibility coordinator, who will act as a liaison between conference participants and the event production team.
After evaluating several potential options, SIPA has chosen Cvent as the official conference management app. Cvent’s strong commitment to digital accessibility and dedicated staff focusing on accessibility were primary deciding factors in the selection process.
Employee Training
SIPA employees were offered one accessibility training session this quarter. The topic of this training was focused on accessible presentations with Google Slides. Internal training sessions are facilitated by SIPA’s digital accessibility specialist and are delivered in one-hour blocks.
This training session, which was attended by 80% of SIPA employees, resulted in three new requests for Grackle Workspace licenses by SIPA personnel. Grackle Workspace is a tool for improving accessibility of Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.
Because of the considerable time and effort required to develop high-quality custom training sessions, SIPA has adjusted the training schedule to a quarterly basis moving forward, however additional training sessions may be provided as time permits.