Transparency isn’t accomplished by printing hundreds of pages and putting them in a table.

The public must be able to read them.

I reviewed Sullivan County’s budget executive summary. Portions are impossible to read even with corrected 20/20 vision. That immediately raises a larger question: How is a resident with limited vision or another disability affecting reading supposed to independently examine the same information?

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires state and local governments to communicate effectively with people with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Justice identifies options such as large print and accessible electronic information for people with vision loss.

No, the American for Disabilities Act does not establish one mandatory point size for every printed county budget.

But that misses the point.

Accessibility is about meaningful access, not checking a box that says a document was printed.

A county budget determines how millions of taxpayer dollars will be raised and spent. Residents should not have to struggle to decipher tiny numbers, account descriptions, footnotes, or financial tables before they can participate intelligently in the budget process.

Sullivan County should correct this.

Publish readable documents. Provide accessible electronic versions. Make alternative formats readily available. And establish an accessibility standard so this does not happen again.

Public information isn’t truly public when members of the public cannot reasonably read it.

Kenneth Walter
Grahamsville, NY