After months of upheaval, FCPS board approves $827.2 million budget

Hours after three Republican lawmakers on Monday called for Fayette School District Superintendent Demetrus Liggins to resign, the school board approved an $827.2 million working budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The budget had a projected $16 million shortfall in May, but it is now balanced, Liggins said.

The district cut $4.3 million through eliminated and unfilled positions.

“I can’t say that there won’t be things that won’t be noticed,” Liggins said. “But we are certainly doing our best to make sure that we’re impacting student achievement and what’s happening in the classroom very, very little.”

The district also cut more than $580,000 in costs for traveling to conferences for professional development and froze some positions.

“The budget our Fayette County Board of Education will consider tonight is balanced without raising the tax rate and with continued support to classrooms,” Liggins said.

Liggins said the $16 million “was an anticipated budget shortfall. There’s no missing money of $16 million. (District officials) said, ‘If we do everything that the board has said they want to do and keep moving forward, we will be $16 million short. ‘”

Board members Monica Mundy and Amanda Ferguson voted against approving the budget. Penny Christian, Tyler Murphy, and Amy Green voted to approve it.

The board also voted to ask Liggins to come up with a plan to restore the district contingency, or rainy day fund, back to 6% of the total general fund budget.

Earlier Monday, Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, Sen. Donald Douglas, R-Nicholasville and Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, chairman of the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee, all called for Liggins’ and Murphy’s resignation.

The three lawmakers’ calls for Liggins’ and Murphy’s resignations were the latest installment in months of fallout over the district’s budget crisis. It tried to pass a new payroll tax with little public notice, a move that Attorney General Russell Coleman found unlawful.

A citizens work group that convened to come up with ideas to solve the shortfall eventually revealed the district had spent down its contingency below the district’s normal 6%. One of Fayette’s budget directors filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the district, saying she was demoted for telling leaders the budget had to shrink.

Liggins was called to testify in front of a legislative committee last week, where lawmakers questioned him about travel and other expenses.

At Monday’s hourslong school board meeting, several people who described themselves as taxpayers spoke. Some asked for a forensic audit, while others pointed out problems with the budget that was approved.

“This level of gross mismanagement would not be acceptable in the best of times, but in an era where our entire education system is under attack on an unprecendented level, this failure demands accountability,” said Collin Harris, one of the speakers.

Christian Adair, an advocate and former educator, cited the academic progress and accomplishments in the school district, including the graduation rate climbing from 89.9% to 92.6%.

Murphy asked finance director Rodney Jackson how the board could be assured that the budgeted numbers were not off. This summer, Liggins had to reveal that the budget’s beginning balance was going to be millions lower than anticipated.

Jackson said the process used to develop the budget was thorough.

After questioning from Ferguson, Jackson noted that the district had spent about $15 million of its contingency fund, and that could not happen again if the district was to remain financially stable.

“It’s unfortunate that we don’t have more answers as to where the contingency was spent,’ Mundy said.

Two years ago, the budget’s beginning balance was $82.5 million. Last year, it was $43.2 million, and in the budget the board approved Monday night $26.3 million.

Murphy said the board is not going to approve the budget and then not talk about it again all year, noting that the board has asked the district audit committee to get to the bottom of everything that has happened and recommend “whatever audit, review, analysis, investigation” needs to be done.

More than one investigation is underway or proposed to get to the root of the budget problems. The Kentucky Auditor’s Office is conducting a special investigation of FCPS.

Christian asked if poor policies were a problem. Jackson said processes needed to be improved.

“We need to rethink how we operate,” he said.

Ferguson noted that she’s had concerns about the budget for the last two years, and when she raised them, Liggins told her that she was playing games and making ridiculous accusations.

“I would appreciate not being told that I’m making ridiculous accusations when I say that I have concerns about the budget. I’m an elected board member, and I represent the same number of constituents that everybody else here does. I was told I was playing games and making ridiculous accusations,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson said there was much information and questions that Liggins still has not answered.

She said she still hasn’t gotten an explanation for why district officials asked the school board to approve one tentative budget in May and sent a different one to the Kentucky Department of Education for approval.

She said she and former board member Tom Jones more than two years ago, asked for a list of district-level positions that were originally paid for by federal Covid recovery funds that were then absorbed into the budget.

School districts were not supposed to use federal COVID recovery funds for recurring costs, but Ferguson said FCPS did that and used the funds to create positions.

“I still contend that the biggest problem we have with budgeting is that all these positions were created with one-time funds, and we told schools not to do it, but we did it (at Central Office), and now we have all these administrators in this building,” Ferguson said.

She said she had not been given a list of names and salaries of employees at Central Office.

This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 9:52 PM.