KY school districts are in ‘bad situations’ amid Trump’s funding freeze

An $87 million federal education funding freeze has left many Kentucky school districts in “bad situations,” Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher said Tuesday.

Fletcher said he will contact lawmakers and the Kentucky attorney general to ask if they can unfreeze the funds, which school districts have said are essential to operations.

“I know many of you have been put into bad situations, particularly as it relates to staffing issues,” Fletcher told school district leaders Tuesday in a weekly email message. “If you are exploring staffing reduction options, we urge you to work with your board attorney, since the time to tell staff their contracts will not be renewed has long passed.”

The $87 million in federal funds for Kentucky were approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in March 2025, Kentucky Department of Education officials said.

But then, on June 30, the U.S. Department of Education said the funds were being frozen while under review, and they would not be released the following day, as initially planned. The department needed to determine if the funds fit the president’s priorities and the federal government’s statutory responsibilities, according to the email.

As a result, Kentucky and other states are now uncertain if funds on which they relied will remain available, despite being approved just a few months ago. In all, $6 billion in federal funding has been frozen to states across the U.S.

Fletcher said in a July 2 call with superintendents and other school district officials across Kentucky that he would contact the state attorney general’s office.

“We are in the process of getting information out to lawmakers and the attorney general’s office to see what our next steps would be,” Fletcher said. “There will be some communication with the attorney general’s office.”

Officials at the Kentucky Department of Education and Attorney General Russell Coleman’s Office did not immediately say Wednesday if talks had happened yet or whether Coleman, a Republican, would take legal action to get the funds released.

Meanwhile, Fletcher said in his Tuesday email, there “are not a lot of good options right now for what to do with this loss of funding.”

Every district will be impacted, particularly with the $33.6 million Kentucky should have received for supporting instruction and the nearly $20.3 million the state was slated to receive for academic enrichment, Fletcher said.

In the July 2 call, KDE officials outlined how much money was on hold, for what purpose the dollars were used, and how many school districts were affected:

• $7.9 million for migrant education; 30 school districts are affected.
• $33.6 million for supporting effective instruction; all 171 school districts are affected.
• $5.7 million for English language acquisition; 50 school districts are affected
• $20.3 million for student support and academic enrichment; all 171 school districts are affected.
• $19.4 million for 21st Century Learning Centers. (This affects funding for the 2026-2027 school year.); 47 school districts are affected.

“It is our hope that USED and this administration will release these funds to the states at some point in the near future,” Fletcher said.

Spending general funds or other sources and getting reimbursement may be an option for districts, but there is no guarantee that the funds will be provided, he said.

“Utilizing other funding sources in hopes of reimbursement is a gamble,” he said.

Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent Demetrus Liggins has not responded to questions about how the hold is affecting that school district.

“We at KDE will be investigating all our options as we work with our state and federal partners since we are all trying to navigate the unsteady landscape that education across the country is facing,” Fletcher said.

This story was originally published July 9, 2025 at 11:42 AM.