Lawmaker grilling FCPS superintendent finds district travel expenses ‘jaw-dropping’

State Sen. Lindsey Tichenor told Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent Demetrus Liggins on Tuesday that she found the district’s credit card receipts, including the amount spent on travel alone, “jaw-dropping.”

In response, Liggins told a committee of Kentucky lawmakers grilling him that much of the criticism of the district’s budget processes is warranted, and that he did not previously probe deeply enough into the causes of a budget shortfall

Liggins also cast blame on members of his staff, saying he wasn’t given accurate information about the budget. He said some of the staff members who went on trips should not have gone.

“There were things I should have known that I did not know,” Liggins said. “I should have asked sharper questions. I wish I had done more. I regret we are in the position that we are in today.”

Fayette County Public Schools is mired in controversy as budget problems were revealed all summer long, from a tax increase proposal that was found unlawful, to a $16 million shortfall to a contingency that was millions of dollars lower than anticipated.

Liggins said he wants to determine what’s gone wrong, how long its been occurring and to prevent it from happening again.

“The buck stops with me,” he said.

Liggins said he supported having external examinations of the district’s finances, in addition to an internal investigation. The district’s budget director, who has been suspended, has filed a lawsuit against Liggins and the district, saying she was placed on leave in retaliation for insisting on budget cuts.

As the district faces the financial controversy, including a $16 million shortfall in its budget, Liggins was summoned to Frankfort to talk to the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Education and was ordered to bring 10 years of previous budgets.

Sen. Steve West, R-Paris, a co-chair of the committee, said he was disappointed in the lack of information that FCPS gave to lawmakers in preparation for Tuesday’s meeting. That forced him to retrieve budget information from another source, the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability.

That state agency reviews and, at times, investigates alleged violations of school laws.

The Paris Republican later asked Liggins if there was a toxic work environment at FCPS.

Liggins said there are “trust issues” among district leadership, an environment established before he arrived in the district in 2021.

West previously told the Herald-Leader he was troubled because FCPS’ attempt at tackling the $16 million shortfall was “to immediately call for a tax increase on all the citizens of Fayette County, with a lack of transparency.”

“I just thought that was the wrong way to handle it,” said West, who represents part of Fayette County. “It’s just one thing that’s built upon another.”

Lawmakers want to get to the bottom of the district’s budget woes and learn what district officials are doing moving forward.

The proposed working budget that school board members will vote on on Sept. 22 is $827.2 million. Liggins said that budget will be balanced.

Tichenor, a Republican from Smithfield, said the reimbursements for Liggins’ travel alone in documents she’s seen in six months of credit card statements was $60,000, She described the travels and their costs as “unbelievable” and “truly astonishing.”

She noted he spent $7,000 on airfare for a trip to Australia.

Tichenor said she got six months of credit card statements from Fayette County Schools from a constituent who obtained them from a Kentucky Open Records request.

The average expense of the credit card statements was $400,000 a month, she said. There are 115 separate credit cards, 50 of them issued to central cffice administrative staff.

“The amount of expenditure on there for travel alone is jaw-dropping,” she said.

She said in one month alone, $52,000 was spent at the Galt House hotel in Louisville. She said, in addition, tens of thousands of dollars was spent for Chick-fil-A, axe-throwing events, tickets for the play “Wicked” and ice cream.

“Insane amounts of expenditures,” Tichenor said.

Liggins said that professional learning offered in Kentucky is often aimed at rural districts and in-state and out-of-state trips are scrutinized so participants bring back to the district skills that impact students.

He said that the Australia trip for himself and some other staff to examine best practices throughout the world to help students in emotional crisis.

He said professional learning expenses have since been cut.

Ticehnor said “these are our taxpayers dollars” that should be “spent first and foremost to educate students,” not for luxury trips.

She said she expected an upcoming state special examination from the Kentucky state auditor’s office to find “a tremendous amount of waste within the district.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM.