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Employment

ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT

Aitkin County is committed to making this website work well for everyone. We believe digital accessibility is a basic part of good public service, and we work on it every day. If something on our site is hard to use, we want to hear about it so we can make it better.

Conformance Status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (opens in new tab) spell out how to build websites that work for people with disabilities. They come in three levels: A, AA, and AAA.

We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA, and many parts of the site also meet Level AAA. We check our work using axe-core (opens in new tab), the same accessibility engine used by the U.S. Department of Justice and professional accessibility auditors.

Accessibility Features

  • Keyboard navigation: Every button, link, and form on the site can be used with a keyboard alone. A visible outline shows you where you are.
  • Skip links: Press Tab at the top of any page to jump straight to the main content, the navigation menu, the search box, or the footer.
  • Screen reader support: We use semantic HTML, ARIA labels, and clear link text so popular screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver can read the site properly.
  • Text alternatives: Meaningful images have descriptive alt text. Decorative images are hidden from screen readers so they don't create noise.
  • Color contrast: All text and interactive controls meet or beat WCAG AA contrast ratios. Many meet Level AAA.
  • Reduced motion: If your device is set to prefer reduced motion, our animations and the homepage carousel will pause automatically.
  • High contrast support: The site is tested with Windows High Contrast mode and the forced-colors media query.
  • Resizable text: You can zoom text up to 200% without breaking the layout. User-applied text spacing (WCAG 1.4.12) also works.
  • PDF and external link warnings: Links to PDFs and outside sites announce themselves to screen readers so there are no surprises.
  • Descriptive page titles: Every page has its own clear title in the browser tab.
  • Consistent navigation: The same menus and landmarks appear on every page, in the same places.

Standards We Follow

Known Limitations

We try our best, but a few areas of the site may still fall short. Here's what we know about:

  • Third-party content: Some embedded tools from outside services (like Constant Contact sign-up forms or interactive GIS maps) don't fully meet our standards. We're working with those vendors to fix what we can.
  • Older PDF documents: Some older PDFs aren't fully tagged for screen readers. We're remediating these as they come up for review. If you need an accessible version of any document, let us know and we'll get one to you.
  • Archived video content: Some older recordings don't have captions. Newer videos include captions and transcripts.

Report an Accessibility Issue

We'd really like to hear from you if something isn't working. Please reach out any way that's easiest for you:

We aim to respond within 5 business days. To help us help you faster, please include:

  • The web address (URL) of the page where you ran into the problem
  • A short description of what happened
  • The browser and any assistive technology you're using, if you can share that

Requesting Accessible Formats

If you need information from this site in another format, like large print, Braille, audio, or a properly tagged PDF, just contact us using the info above. We'll get it to you at no cost and as quickly as we can.

Formal Complaints

If you're not happy with how we handle your accessibility concern, you can file a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Americans with Disabilities Act:

Assessment & Testing

We check the site in several ways, on an ongoing basis:

  • Automated testing: axe-core 4.11.2 scans every major page template.
  • Manual keyboard testing: We verify every interactive component works without a mouse.
  • Screen reader testing: We test pages with NVDA and VoiceOver.
  • Color contrast verification: Every color pair gets checked against WCAG AA (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI components).
  • Mobile responsive testing: We verify all pages at 375×812 (iPhone) and up.

Technical Specifications

Accessibility on this site works through these technologies, together with your browser and any assistive tools you use:

  • HTML5 with semantic landmarks
  • WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative, Accessible Rich Internet Applications)
  • CSS, with responsive media queries and support for reduced-motion and forced-colors
  • JavaScript, used as progressive enhancement so core content still works without it

Date

This statement was last reviewed and updated on April 22, 2026.