Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, i.e., 29 U.S.C. § 794d, et seq., generally 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.
During the planning process, contracting officers should work with internal customers, Information Technology and their assigned counsel to determine and document accessibility requirements and exceptions for each ICT item to be purchased.
The purchase/SCM team must incorporate relevant accessibility requirements into solicitation and contract documentation. Contracting officers should 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://www.section508.gov/buy/accessibility-requirements-tool.
Accessibility risk can be further managed by requesting and evaluating accessibility information from suppliers prior to selection. Contracting officers may should 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 typically in the form of an Accessibility Conformance Report. Contracting officers should consider the best practice of including accessibility standards or testing as an evaluation factor or acceptance criteria in light of restrictions against procuring non-compliant ICT absent an exception. Failure to properly evaluate Section 508 compliance prior to award may result in the inadvertent procurement of unusable ICT.
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.
The requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as amended do not apply to ICT that is the following:
- Acquired by a supplier incidental to a contract.
- Located in spaces frequented only by service personnel for maintenance, repair, or occasional monitoring of equipment.
- Only in the event that no Section 508-compliant ICT is commercially available – a determination that requires market research and consultation with the Law Department - a commercially available ICT that best meets the accessibility standards in comparison to other commercially available ICT that could also meet the business needs of the Postal Service.
The requiring or ordering activity must document in writing the basis for an exception determination in accordance with Postal Service/CIO policies and practices. The contracting officer should include documentation of the exception determination in the contract file.
When acquiring commercial items, the requiring or ordering activity must document in writing: (a) the non-availability of conforming ICT, including a description of market research performed and which provisions cannot be met, and (b) the basis for determining that the ICT to be procured best meets the requirements in the Revised 508 Standards consistent with the needs of the Postal Service.
In accordance with Clause 4-18: Information and Communication Technology Accessibility, suppliers must submit an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) documenting their products’ conformance with the Section 508 accessibility standards before acceptance of ICT. “Before acceptance” may mean requiring an ACR in a proposal, as a milestone deliverable, or upon delivery, depending on the purchase.
Contracting officers should direct suppliers to the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT®) developed by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and the General Services Administration (GSA) for additional information (http://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat).
