Services
Software that helps government serve people better.
Stoa works with state and local agencies on three things: citizen-facing tools, public data and transparency systems, and ADA Title II accessibility. Below is what each one looks like in practice.
Citizen experience
Citizen-facing tools
Portals, dashboards, and request systems built around how residents actually behave.
Most city websites are organized around the org chart — departments, divisions, sub-units. Residents don't think that way. They want to pay a bill, check a permit, report a pothole. We design around the task, not the bureaucracy.
See example: City of Campbell PortalWhat's included
- Resident portals with task-first navigation
- Service request systems (311-style) with status tracking
- Permit and payment lookup interfaces
- Public-facing search across city data
- Mobile-first design — most residents arrive on a phone
- Plain language, with translations where it matters
A good fit when
- Your current site routes residents through three systems to do one thing
- Front-desk staff are answering the same questions over and over
- Adoption metrics on existing tools are below 20%
- You're consolidating vendors and need a unified entry point
Open government
Public data & transparency
Open data, budget transparency, and AI-assisted retrieval over dense government datasets.
Public records exist — they're just buried in PDFs, scanned minutes, and legacy databases nobody wants to maintain. We turn FOIA-worthy material into searchable, linkable interfaces. Less staff burden, more accountability, same source documents.
See example: Bay Area Budget DashboardWhat's included
- Budget dashboards with cross-year and cross-city comparisons
- Council and commission minutes search (full-text and semantic)
- Public records portals with structured download
- AI-assisted retrieval over meeting archives, permits, and policy docs
- Automated ingest pipelines for ongoing data refresh
- Open data API endpoints when other systems need to consume the data
A good fit when
- Your records are public on paper but unsearchable in practice
- Staff spend hours fulfilling routine FOIA requests for the same documents
- Council members and reporters keep asking the same questions
- You want to publish budget or spending data but lack the visualization layer
Accessibility
ADA Title II & WCAG 2.1 AA
Accessibility audits and retrofits to meet the DOJ's 2024 Title II rule deadlines.
The DOJ's 2024 final rule under Title II of the ADA requires state and local government websites and apps to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Compliance deadlines hit in April 2026 (large entities) and April 2027 (smaller entities). We audit existing systems, prioritize fixes, and rebuild the parts that can't be retrofitted.
See example: Product Recall SearchWhat's included
- WCAG 2.1 AA audits with a prioritized remediation plan
- Keyboard navigation and screen reader fixes
- Color contrast and visual accessibility corrections
- Form, table, and document accessibility
- PDF remediation strategy (or migration off PDFs entirely)
- Staff training on accessible content authoring
A good fit when
- You have a Title II compliance deadline approaching and no clear plan
- An accessibility complaint or DOJ inquiry has put compliance on the front burner
- Your current vendor's accessibility statement is vague or out of date
- You're building something new and want it accessible from day one, not retrofitted later
Engagement
How we work
Government procurement doesn't have to be slow. Most engagements move from first email to working software in weeks, not quarters.
Brief
Tell us what you're building, who it serves, and what's in the way. A paragraph is enough — no formal RFP needed to start the conversation.
Scope
We propose a fixed scope, timeline, and price. Clear deliverables, no vague statements of work, no surprise change orders.
Build
Tight sprints with regular check-ins. You see progress every week, and we ship something usable as early as possible.
Hand off
You own the code, the documentation, and the deployment. We don't disappear — we're available for follow-on work, but you're never locked in.
Procurement
Built for how government actually buys.
Stoa is a registered California LLC based in Campbell. We're comfortable with both informal pilots and full RFP responses, and we work through the South Bay's standard procurement portals.
No formal RFP is required to start a conversation — sometimes a project starts with a single email and grows into something the agency wants to put through procurement later. Either way works for us.
For projects under your discretionary spending threshold, we can usually start in days, not months.
Have a project in mind?
Tell us what you're building and where you're stuck. A paragraph is enough.