Going Beyond ADA Compliance to Build Inclusive, Accommodating Communities

By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Since 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has served as a comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities. Updated in 2008, it includes two parts that apply to cities and public employers: employment, and facility and program accessibility.

Several cities across Minnesota have embraced the requirements and are making important strides in enhancing inclusivity around residents and employees with disabilities. The City of Roseville, for one, highlights volunteers with varying abilities in its city newsletter, while its administrative department received a training on sign language to use during emergencies.

Roseville also held a training for supervisors run by an expert from the Minnesota Council on Disability. City leaders are looking into offering skills-building classes to help Roseville employees support and enhance the work of volunteers with different abilities.

“Because nearly every employee will have a medical condition at some point during their career, it’s important that cities have a good understanding of the ADA and its state counterpart, the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), including when they need to seek legal guidance or other assistance,” said Jana O’Leary Sullivan, assistant litigation supervisor at the League of Minnesota Cities.

“That is especially important right now when there are a lot of changes, including new legal developments, a continuing hot labor market, and societal changes,” O’Leary Sullivan said. “Right now, is a point in time when we’re seeing an expansion of employee rights from every angle — who’s covered, what conditions are covered, and what an employer may be required to provide as a reasonable accommodation.”

Complying with the ADA, and even going above and beyond the law, can help cities to build a more inclusive community where all residents feel welcome and appreciated, a place where people want to live and want to work. It also ensures that cities will avoid ADA noncompliance fines, potential lawsuits, and damage to their reputation, especially if it’s for an issue that could have been easily addressed.

Inclusive facilities, services, and programs

One component of the ADA and MHRA requires cities to comply with specified accessibility requirements. For example:

• Public sidewalks need to have proper curb cuts and curb ramps.
• City parking lots must have adequate accessible parking spaces.
• City websites and technology need to be accessible to all.
• City buildings need to have ramps for people who use wheelchairs.
• These types of changes to infrastructure benefit everyone, making it easier for strollers or carts with wheels to navigate, deliveries to be made to buildings, and more. While there are a few exceptions in which a city may not need to alter a building or program to meet certain requirements, such as if a building is deemed historically significant, leaders should work with their city attorneys on these issues.

In addition to ensuring facilities are accessible, cities will want to have inclusive policies. For example, policies must allow service animals to enter city buildings — and because the standard is what is reasonable, they may have to take additional steps regarding service and support animals for employees. Also, cities need to have effective ways to communicate with people with vision impairments, hearing impairments, or speech disabilities. Cities also must provide qualified interpreters or assistive listening devices at public events or meetings for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, and provide materials in alternate formats such as Braille, large print, or in an auditory form to people who are blind or have low vision.

Inclusive workplaces

At its core, O’Leary Sullivan said, in addition to anti-discrimination clauses, the ADA requires cities to provide reasonable accommodations to their employees so that their workers can best perform their jobs and serve the city and residents. This requirement applies for physical, mental, and developmental medical conditions and injuries — and it applies to both work-related and nonwork-related conditions.

Accommodations can range from modifying schedules, modifying or providing additional breaks, providing tools and equipment, communicating in additional/different ways, providing medical leave, and providing remote/hybrid work. Like other potential accommodations, a city may have to provide remote/hybrid work as an accommodation even if it generally limits or doesn’t allow this work. This is especially true since the pandemic showed the workability of remote/hybrid work in many situations. Given this, employers need to carefully consider and document in the event of rejecting a request for hybrid/remote work — and better yet, first try a trial run, according to O’Leary Sullivan.

“Accommodations are flexible, brainstorming and thinking outside the box is encouraged, and communication is key,” O’Leary Sullivan said. “It’s up to the employer, the employee, and often a medical provider to figure out what tools or other modifications employees may need so they can do the core part of their job.”

She adds, there was a time when interpretations of the ADA focused on whether or not a condition applied to the law, and disabilities were more narrowly defined, “But now, assume that nearly every condition is covered and go from there.”

ADA misconceptions and documentation

Often, medical leave is a reasonable accommodation — and an employee’s entitlement to leave goes above and beyond other leave laws such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). For instance, under the ADA, there are no minimum service or hour requirements for eligibility.

“With the ADA, people are protected under the law from before day one of employment, when you’re just a job applicant,” O’Leary Sullivan said. Hiring practices must be lawful and should also be inclusive.

One common misconception is that a city only has to provide requested lightduty work if the employee has a work comp injury. O’Leary Sullivan states, “Under ADA, if light duty is available and within an individual’s work restrictions, that should be provided, regardless of whether the restrictions stem from a work-related or non-work-related issue.”

Cities, too, need to consider how they’re documenting ADA-related decisions. “It’s almost always a good practice to get and rely on objective medical documentation,” she said. But, at the same time, documentation isn’t absolutely necessary for every medical condition — in fact, state law prohibits requiring documentation for some pregnancy-related accommodations. City administrators should work with their human resources staff and attorneys to determine what documentation is needed in a specific case.

It also benefits employers to be proactive and inclusive, notes O’Leary Sullivan. One area where this is especially true is mental health. Over the last several years, there has been an increase in the percentage of adults in the U.S. with mental health conditions, she said. While the ADA equally protects mental and physical conditions, there are often additional or different considerations between the two.

Moving beyond what the ADA requires

To be fully inclusive and to prioritize employee and resident well-being, cities can — and should — focus on how to be more accommodating beyond the legal requirements of the ADA, always considering disabilities that may not be as visible, too, said Arianna Bloom, LMC diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator.

“When we talk about building welcoming environments and inclusion, a lot of the time disability is left out of the conversation,” Bloom said.

Ways to move beyond the requirements could mean better accommodating people who are neurodivergent or have a disability that isn’t outwardly noticeable. “It could be someone with ADHD or a traumatic brain injury who now has trouble focusing on words and needs more visual and auditory help,” Bloom said. An accommodation could be to give the person more time to read a prepared statement during a public meeting.

“Disability inclusion is about understanding the different ways in which people function and participate in society, and making sure that everyone has the same opportunities and is able to participate to the best of their ability and desire,” she said.

Cities seeking to create welcoming communities should ensure disability inclusion is a core part of DEI efforts, Bloom said. “Also, with many cities struggling with hiring and retention, creating an inclusive workplace can help.”

Tapping into lived experiences

To create inclusive cities and workplaces, cities can start by talking to individuals who have the lived experience. Engaging with the communities you’re hoping to serve is important, said Bloom. Every single city has a disability community because disability is something that most families or households will have experience with at some point.

“Listening to those lived experiences can be very powerful and very helpful,” she said, and that’s a step that cities should take even before they evaluate or reevaluate their practices, policies, and procedures through an ADA, disability, and inclusivity lens. “You can’t overhaul policies if you don’t even know what you’re looking for,” she adds.

One tangible step that cities can take when it comes to hiring is making sure they frame their job descriptions in a way that’s inclusive. Accommodations are also important. Accommodations for job applicants who are neurodivergent, as one example, might include giving the job seekers interview questions well ahead of the interview date or letting them have more time to respond if a written exam or an exercise is involved.

“Ask applicants if they need any special accommodations ahead of time,” Bloom said. And always plan ahead. Don’t schedule interviews in a room that isn’t physically accessible. If you give questions to candidates during the interview, ensure the font size used is at least 12 point and that there is ample space between each question.

O’Leary Sullivan added, “While employers are required to provide accommodations as part of the hiring process, and should inform candidates of this,” she cautions, “employers should not ask about medical conditions or pregnancy — even if known or obvious — at the application or interview stage.”

“Also, review job descriptions and postings to doublecheck that requirements — especially strength, fitness, vision, hearing, etc. — are related to the job and supported by a good reason,” she said.

City officials should also think about how they prepare their employees to interact with members of the public who have disabilities. Training is essential, as is inviting residents with disabilities to participate in community conversations in comfortable spaces.

Cities should remember, too, that people with disabilities often bring diverse skill sets and new ways of thinking to the workplace, and that can spark new products, services, and exciting innovations, Bloom said.

“There are also tons of studies out there that show companies that champion people with diverse skill sets outperform other companies,” she adds.

Bloom and O’Leary Sullivan recommend resources from the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), including a workplace accommodation toolkit, and other tools supervisors, managers, and recruiters can use to help provide better workplace accommodations.

Programs to make cities more inclusive

Minnesota cities are making meaningful improvements for residents with disabilities. The New Brighton Parks and Recreation Department has offered a sensory-friendly playtime program at its community center, while Rochester has a new indoor accessible playground with doors that accommodate wheelchairs and ramps.

Meanwhile in the City of Richfield, the parks and recreation department partnered with the specialty health care and inclusion services of the nonprofit Fraser to build an inclusive playground. The space is wheelchair-accessible and includes features like fidget spinners and sensory equipment.

Both O’Leary Sullivan and Bloom say that the key to developing any type of inclusion program is speaking with and listening to the population you want to serve. “You should be having free flowing discussions,” Bloom said, “and empathy is a very important component.”

O’Leary Sullivan and Bloom will both speak more about the ADA and how to advance accessibility and disability inclusion as part of a dedicated track during the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust’s Spring Safety and Loss Control Workshops.

The ADA track will include sessions on the most common ADA noncompliance issues in city buildings, ensuring facilities are ADA compliant and employment practices meet ADA requirements, and on general ADA inclusivity and creating an environment in which individuals with disabilities can thrive.

It’s essential learning, O’Leary Sullivan said, especially as the jobs market remains strong. “It is still a very hot labor market out there, and recruitment and retention are so important,” she said. “One way to recruit and retain more people and to show more inclusivity is to do a better job accommodating people.”

Deborah Lynn Blumberg is a freelance writer.