8-4.3 Accessibility

General — Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998 requires the Postal Service to ensure that ICT purchased by the Postal Service allows employees with disabilities and customers with disabilities to have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use of information and data by employees and customers who do not have disabilities, unless an exception applies. Further information on Section 508 is available at http://www.section508.gov.

Process Overview — During the planning process, contracting officers should work with internal customers to determine and document accessibility requirements and exceptions for each ICT item to be purchased.

Contracting officers must incorporate relevant accessibility requirements into solicitation and contract documentation. Contracting officers may use the Accessibility Requirements Tool (ART) to identify relevant accessibility requirements. ART is a step-by-step guide developed by the General Services Administration that can be accessed at https://app.buyaccessible.gov/home.

Accessibility risk can be further managed by requesting and evaluating accessibility information from suppliers prior to selection. Contracting officers may request that a supplier provide information to perform a 508 technical evaluation, such as a description of the supplier’s technical accessibility expertise and experience, the evaluation methods the supplier will use to validate conformance to the Revised 508 Standards, or an Accessibility Conformance Report. Contracting officers should consider the best practice of including accessibility standards or testing as an evaluation factor or acceptance criteria.

Applicability — Purchases of ICT must meet the applicable accessibility standards at 36 CFR part 1194 unless an exception determination is obtained prior to either the award of a contract or order under an indefinite-delivery contract.

Exception determinations are not required prior to award of indefinite-delivery contracts, except for requirements that are to be satisfied by initial award. Contracting officers who award indefinite-delivery contracts must indicate to requiring and ordering activities which ICT the supplier indicates as compliant and where full details of compliance can be found (e.g., a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template^®, Accessibility Conformance Report). Before task or delivery orders are issued, requiring and ordering activities must ensure ICT meets the applicable accessibility standards at 39 CFR part 1194 or obtain a determination that an exception applies.

Exceptions — The requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as amended do not apply to ICT that is the following:

• Is acquired by a supplier incidental to a contract.
• Is located in spaces frequented only by service personnel for maintenance, repair, or occasional monitoring of equipment.
• Is commercially available ICT that best meets the accessibility standards in comparison to other commercially available ICT that could also meet the Postal Service’s business needs.