Brian Beals, LLC

Nonvisual Access & ADA Title II · Assessment and Remediation Planning
Remote delivery · on-site in Maryland as needed
brian@brianbeals.com
brianbeals.com/accessibility/maryland
(941) 979-6282
Maryland-Certified VSBE VB26-100715 · SBA-Certified SDVOSB
Two obligations, one body of evidence. Maryland has required nonvisual access in state IT procurement since 2005: under State Finance & Procurement §3.5-311 the Nonvisual Access clause goes into every IFB, RFP, and contract for new or upgraded ICT, the vendor warrants equivalent nonvisual access when it bids, and DoIT reviews conformance within 18 months of award. A vendor that fails that review has 12 months to remediate at its own expense, then faces a civil penalty and an obligation to indemnify the State for liability arising from the noncompliant technology. Separately, the DOJ rule under ADA Title II requires WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027 for public entities serving 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller entities and special districts.

Company Snapshot

Maryland VSBECertified
VSBE #VB26-100715
VSBE Term08/2026 – 08/2029
Maryland CSB #SB26-100712
eMMA VendorSUP1105247
UEINJLEHNAQATJ6
CAGE22XM3
Founded2026 · Florida LLC
Certified Veteran-Owned Small Business Enterprise (MD Office of Small, Minority & Women Business Affairs)

Standards Applied

Maryland NVACOMAR 14.33.02
NVA ClauseCOMAR 21.05.08.05
StatuteSF&P §3.5-311
WCAG2.1 Level AA
ADA Rule28 CFR Part 35
AlsoSection 504 · 508

Scope Covered

WebPages & templates
DocumentsPDF & Office
FormsOnline & fillable
MobileApps & responsive
MediaCaptions & transcripts
Third partyVendor VPAT review

CATS+ Fit

FA 2Web & Internet Systems
FA 10IT Mgmt Consulting
PostureSubcontract to a master

A veteran-owned consultancy that establishes where an agency or a prime actually stands against Maryland's nonvisual access requirement and the Title II deadline, then says what to fix first. The deliverable is an Accessibility Conformance Report: every WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA success criterion marked and evidenced, dated and signed. Delivered by one principal with an enterprise data and automation background.

Services

Nonvisual Access Conformance Evidence

Independent evaluation of a deliverable against COMAR 14.33.02 and WCAG 2.1 Level AA, producing the evidence a contractor needs when DoIT reviews conformance within 18 months of award. A prime signs the NVA warranty at bid time; this is the work that makes the warranty defensible eighteen months later, before the review rather than during it.

Title II Readiness Assessment

Automated scanning plus manual sample testing, including keyboard and screen reader checks, against WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Review of the published accessibility statement, coordinator designation, and grievance procedure against what the rule requires. Deliverable is an Accessibility Conformance Report in VPAT 2.5 format, the same document you already require from your software vendors, plus a prioritized roadmap with effort bands and a one-page summary suitable for a board or budget request. Two to four weeks.

Document Inventory & Triage

Catalog every PDF and document across the agency's web properties, then classify each one: retire, replace with an accessible HTML page, remediate, or leave. Remaining items are prioritized by page traffic, program criticality, and exposure. Deliverable is a scoped work order a remediation vendor can execute against, so per-page remediation spend goes to documents that are actually in use.

Program & Policy Setup

Accessibility statement naming the standard and conformance level, coordinator designation, grievance procedure, self-evaluation documentation, procurement language requiring a VPAT or ACR before purchase, and content governance so newly published material stops regressing.

Differentiators

  • Maryland's requirement is older and stricter than the federal one. The nonvisual access warranty has been in state IT contracts since 2005 and carries a post-award review. Teams that plan only for the 2027 ADA date are planning for the later of the two obligations.
  • No product to sell. No overlay, no platform license, no per-page remediation quota. The recommendation follows the finding.
  • Evaluation only, never the remediation. A conformance claim written by whoever built or repaired the site is self-assessment. Staying out of the repair work is what lets the report mean something, and it gives a remediation vendor a specification to bid against rather than a per-page quote nobody can check.
  • A tagged PDF is not a conforming PDF. Most checkers ask only whether tags exist. A document can have them and still be unreadable: no headings, tables with no header cells, images with no alt text. That is what an auto-tag pass leaves behind, and often what an agency receives after paying to have it fixed.
  • The report says what it did not check. Reading order, meaningful alt text, and focus order are not machine-detectable, and asserting conformance on automated evidence alone is how a report becomes the exhibit. An unanswered criterion reports as Not Evaluated, never as Supports.
  • Set-aside vehicle. Certified VSBE, so participation counts against the 3% statewide goal and against the VSBE subcontract goals written into task orders.

Demonstrated Capability

Method. Findings are measured, not estimated. Where a check cannot be made honestly, for example text over a photograph where the background color is unknowable from the page, it is reported as indeterminate rather than asserted. A finding a client can disprove costs more than a finding never made.

Past performance. Newly formed, with no Maryland contract past performance to date. The reference implementation above is the firm’s own site, evaluated and remediated end to end under the same method proposed here, with the resulting report available on request. Manual assistive-technology validation at depth and high-volume document remediation are delivered with a specialist partner. Available to subcontract the assessment, inventory, and program layer under a CATS+ master or a remediation prime.