FCPS paid tens of thousands to lobbyists to promote tax increase, defend Liggins
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- FCPS paid Lexington firm Piper‑Smith tens of thousands under two contracts.
- Firm won $38,000 to promote 50% occupational tax hike that AG voided.
- Piper‑Smith pivoted to reputation control, privately advising Liggins.
Over the summer, the beleaguered Fayette County Public Schools paid tens of thousands of dollars to a Lexington marketing and lobbying firm that worked behind the scenes to promote a controversial tax hike and defend the reputation of Superintendent Demetrus Liggins amid a school district budget crisis.
Under a three-year contract signed by Liggins in August 2023, Piper-Smith LLC gets $60,000 annually to lobby Kentucky state government on behalf of the Fayette County Public Schools, according to documents obtained by the Herald-Leader this week using the Kentucky’s Open Records Act.
In early May, with Liggins’ approval, Piper-Smith won $38,000 more under a second contract for a “public awareness campaign” to push a proposed 50% hike in the school district’s occupational license tax. More tax revenue was needed to cover a multi-million-dollar shortfall in the district budget, Liggins said.
Because the firm’s second contract was for less than $40,000, it wasn’t necessary for the five-member school board to approve it, board chairman Tyler Murphy told the Herald-Leader Friday.
Liggins was authorized to award that deal on his own, Murphy said.
Piper-Smith was paid $18,000 June 10 and $20,000 July 11, on top of its usual lobbying fees, according to school district financial records.
In a seven-page proposal it submitted in May to win the new contract, the firm said it could try to rally public support behind the tax increase over the summer, using social media, opinion pieces, letters to the editor, yard signs and bumper stickers, all “while blocking threats proactively.”
“The campaign is expected to run from the day of approval through Sept. 1, 2025. Initial efforts will be front-loaded to establish strategy and develop messaging and materials,” Piper-Smith wrote. “Communications post-effort (July, August) will be aimed at thanking the public or re-establishing trust and support for the district in the event the tax effort is not successful.”
However, on June 4, Attorney General Russell Coleman ruled the school district’s attempted tax increase was illegal due to inadequate public notice before the school board voted for it. Liggins took the idea off the table.
Lacking their original mission, Piper-Smith partners Abby Piper and Jared Smith appear to have pivoted and refocused their attention over the summer on reputation damage control for Liggins.
Lexington residents and their elected representatives were angered not just by the attempted tax increase, but also by a suddenly revealed school district budget deficit that has yet to be fully quantified or explained. A state audit is underway. Legislators have issued calls for Liggins and Murphy to resign.
As the weeks went on, Piper forwarded critical press releases and news stories to Liggins and Murphy.
On Aug. 18, for example, Piper sent Liggins a statement she said state Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, was preparing to release. Lockett wrote, in part, “the superintendent seems to be playing the role of Nero as Rome burns. ... This is no way to conduct the public’s business.”
Ninety minutes later, Liggins fired back to Piper, “Here is my rebuttal.”
In his reply, Liggins wrote: “While the concerns expressed are passionate, they mispresent both the facts and direction of Fayette County Public Schools ... Calls for ‘new leadership’ may make for dramatic headlines, but they do nothing to advance the hard, necessary work of educating children.”
The next day, Piper sent Liggins a statement from state Sen. Amanda Mays Bledsoe, R-Lexington, that said, in part, “This level of dysfunction feels like a rejected script from a political satire.”
“How does one respond to that?,” Liggins asked Piper.
“I think you can do it publicly if you like, through a statement, although that probably makes it worse,” Piper advised him.
FCPS leaders on defense
On Friday, school district spokeswoman Miranda Scully said the $38,000 contract to Piper-Smith was for work “that extended beyond the immediate outcome of the attorney general’s ruling” on the tax increase.
“The firm was contracted to conduct community outreach, stakeholder engagement and informational services throughout the summer to ensure all options related to the budget were fully explored and understood by the public,” Scully said in a prepared statement.
“At a time of significant budget discussion, any communication advising the superintendent and board on public perception of the district’s financial challenges — including the need to find a budget solution — falls within the necessary scope of stakeholder and legislative communication,” she said. “We will continue to utilize the lobbyist firm’s support so our staff can maintain focus on supporting the daily needs of our students and school staff.”
Murphy, the school board chairman, said he could not immediately recall much about the contract that Liggins awarded to Piper-Smith in May.
“I‘m going to have to go back and look and see what the terms are,” Murphy said. “Some of the work they do is in communications and public relations, and so that’s what I’m inclined to think, that that was some of their role in that regard.”
Piper and Smith declined to be interviewed Friday about their work for the school district.
In a prepared statement, Smith confirmed Piper-Smith was hired to help with the proposed occupational license tax increase.
“As we do with all of our clients, we did our best to guide them through what ended up being a difficult and unprecedented process on a timeline provided by their legal counsel,” Smith wrote. “It is unfortunate that the media is focusing on the companies who have tried to help the district tirelessly rather than the real issues at hand.”
Email shows Piper and Smith communicated with Liggins and Murphy on how to respond to attacks on their performance. Piper, who is managing partner of the firm, repeatedly suggested they publish opinion pieces to explain themselves and invite legislators to spend time in Fayette County schools.
Piper recommended they buy an advertisement in the August issue of The Lane Report, a local business magazine. Social media is useful to reach the public with school district “achievement facts,” Piper wrote. LinkedIn is “especially important for our business community,” she said, while Facebook is “for our moms and dads and grandparents.”
The school district — with Piper-Smith’s assistance — convened a work group to come up with ideas to solve the budget shortfall. That ended up leading to more controversy when it was revealed the district had spent down its contingency fund below the normal level of 6%.
“After the last public workshop, consider doing a survey or poll,” Piper suggested in a June 24 email. “We don’t have to release the results if they aren’t good, but it would be a good pulse check to see how our efforts were received and determine our next steps.”
Privately criticizing legislators
Piper urged Liggins and Murphy to push back on public criticism of excessive administrative spending at the school district, including salaries for top officials — Liggins’ total compensation package this year is $381,767 — meal and travel costs, entertainment and other expenses at the central office.
At one legislative committee hearing in Frankfort, lawmakers called the district’s travel expenses “jaw dropping,” including $7,000 in airfare for a trip to Australia for Liggins.
Such criticism is unfounded, Piper assured Liggins.
“There has been an incredible amount of misinformation about administrative costs,” Piper wrote July 23 to Liggins and deputy superintendent Houston Barber. “We need to be part of combatting that and arm our legislators with the appropriate data, both so that they cannot say they don’t know and so that they can, hopefully, refute these falsehoods.”
Although she was unfailingly polite to lawmakers in her communications with them, when speaking privately with school officials, Piper took aim at legislators’ behavior in public office, including the money spent on their own travel costs.
“I am working now to pull the amount of money spent by the state on legislative conferences,” Piper told Liggins July 23. “I won’t have the total amount spent on legislators by lobbyists at those conferences until October, but we can always layer that in.”
On May 28, Piper wrote to Liggins and others: “I think it’s pretty rich the claims we’re getting from people who literally made comments last night about not having public comments and the (Lexington city) council and legislature accusing us of lack of transparency when (a) the legislature regularly passes bills before the text is even uploaded to the website for public review and (b) the council budget meetings happen on weekdays during the day.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM.
