FCPS open records rules violated law; school district says it will revise policy
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Fayette County schools violated open records law with unauthorized guidelines.
- District pledges policy revision after questions about posted rules for records requests.
- Attorney general cited multiple past violations involving delayed or redacted records.
The Fayette County Public Schools has violated the Kentucky Open Records Act by posting an arbitrary set of rules for citizens’ records requests that are not authorized by law, two lawyers who specialize in public records access told the Lexington Herald-Leader this week.
On its website, the school district said that open records requests must “be in alignment with district priorities,” “be feasible in terms of demands on the time and resources” of staff and “not interfere with staff members’ ability and availability” to perform their other duties.
On Wednesday, after the Herald-Leader inquired about the legality of the rules, school district officials said they would soon remove them from the district’s website.
There is nothing to support such rules in the state’s open records law, which generally requires public agencies to make their records available upon request, said Michael Abate, a Louisville lawyer who frequently represents news organizations in their legal fights for public records.
Although some public agencies treat open records requests like a “nuisance,” Abate said, this is the first time he’s seen an agency “come out and explicitly say so” in its written policy.
“That seems to me like a per se admission that they’re willfully violating the law by responding when they feel like it, rather than when the law says they have to,” Abate said. “Yeah, it’s pretty brazen, in my mind.”
“Absolutely indefensible,” said Amye Bensenhaver, a former assistant attorney general and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
“The district does not have discretion to impose its priorities or its feasibility assessments on state law,” Bensenhaver said. “This is beyond the pale.”
As written, the rules could have “a chilling effect” on people planning to file a request, she said.
FCPS on defensive
In response, district spokeswoman Miranda Scully said the open records rules were posted by “a previous administration,” before the arrival of Superintendent Demetrus Liggins in 2021.
The school district plans to remove the rules now that it’s been made aware of them, Scully said.
“We are appreciative of the Herald-Leader for bringing this to our attention and will take appropriate steps to revise the guidelines on the website to fully reflect our current process,” Scully said. “We will continue to provide a fully transparent process for the public.”
The school district has not been using the posted rules to deny anyone’s records requests, Scully added.
The Fayette County Public Schools has been on the defensive in recent months over a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall that has yet to be fully quantified or explained by district officials. A state audit is pending.
In June, Attorney General Russell Coleman found the Fayette County School Board violated the Open Meetings Act by trying to quickly pass an occupational tax increase to cover the budget shortfall without giving adequate public notice.
The attorney general’s office enforces the open meetings and open records laws in Kentucky.
The attorney general also has found that the Fayette County Public Schools violated the open records law several times over the past two years.
In those cases, the attorney general said the school district failed to respond to a request for records about its spending on marketing; delayed access to records about salaries without providing a date when the records would be available; and redacted various emails and attachments, including a copy of the district’s 2023-24 budget, without adequately justifying those redactions.
An elected school board member who often criticizes Liggins’ leadership, Amanda Ferguson, has complained that she has been required to file open records requests to get district documents that typically are made available to board members so they can perform their official duties.
Agencies can’t ask ‘Why?’
Abate, the Louisville attorney, said public agencies can’t quiz a citizen to determine if their “priorities” match the agency’s before they decide whether to release public records.
“They’re not allowed to ask you why you want it,” he said.
“If you request it and it’s public record, they gotta turn it over. The only thing they can ask is, are you going to sell it? Are you going to use it for a commercial purpose? Because if it’s for a commercial purpose, it can be treated a little differently. But other than that, they can’t ask you, ‘Why do you want this? Why do you think you need this?’ Your priorities and their priorities are completely irrelevant to the discussion.”
As for imposing on an agency’s staff by requesting public records, Abate said, there is a “very narrow exception” in the law that restricts requests that would be unduly burdensome, “but there’s a high standard you got to meet for that.
“There’s case law about it,” he added.
“It’s not just that this would be inconvenient for you. Hell, the city of Louisville tried this over and over, and the attorney general issued half a dozen or more opinions saying, ‘The fact that your staff is busy doesn’t mean that this request is a disturbance. The mere fact they have a lot of pending requests is not sufficient. It’s your job under the law to assign enough people to process them.’”
This story was originally published September 17, 2025 at 1:33 PM.
