Report Card Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor, MI — Grade D
Public website a2gov.org, population 119,381. Measured on 2026-09-05.
| Documents found on the public site | 1,075 |
|---|---|
| Missing screen-reader structure | 611 |
| Scanned images with no text | 242 |
| Fail full PDF/UA validation (veraPDF) | 100% |
| Forms and notices residents use today | 42 |
Estimate from a crawl of 2,634 pages and a random sample of 200 documents. How we measure
What the numbers mean
We fetched 2,634 pages of the public site and found 1,075 PDF documents linked from them. The crawl reached the end of the site.
We downloaded a random sample of 200 of them. 197 were still online, and of the 175 we could open, 101 (57.7%) had no tag tree, which is the structure a screen reader needs to read a document in order. 40 were pictures of pages with no text layer at all.
As an independent check, 175 documents from the sample were also validated with veraPDF against the full PDF/UA-1 standard; 100% failed at least one rule. That number is always higher than ours: a document can have a tag tree and still fail on reading order, table structure or missing text alternatives. The grade uses the stricter, simpler fact, no tag tree at all.
Of the documents missing structure, about 6.9% look, from their names and location on the site, like forms, notices and guides that residents use today. Those are the ones the Title II rule reaches first. The rest are largely archives, which the rule exempts unless they are still used to obtain a service.
What repair would cost
A starting point, not a quote. We quote in writing after looking at the actual files.
| Documents residents use today, missing structure | 42 |
|---|---|
| Median length of a document in the sample | 4 pages |
| Estimated pages in that set | 168 |
| At the standard rate ($6 per page) | $1,008 |
Most cities start with a much smaller set, the twenty or thirty forms that get the most use, and add the rest month by month. All rates.