LEXINGTON, Ky. — Months before Fayette County Public Schools faced a multimillion-dollar shortfall, Superintendent Demetrus Liggins told a school board member there was no cause for concern — while also scolding her for speaking with district staff about budget questions — even as questions circulated about departmental budget reductions. The correspondence, obtained and reviewed by the Herald-Leader, offers an early glimpse of tensions that would later grow into a full-blown budget crisis.
According to the Herald-Leader, board member Amanda Ferguson emailed Liggins on Dec. 2, 2024, after hearing from staff that all FCPS departments had been told to trim budgets by 10 percent. Ferguson asked why the board — which formally oversees district finances — had not been informed first.
Liggins responded the same day, telling Ferguson there were no actual cuts and that the district’s financial outlook remained “very healthy.” He described the exercise as an administrative review to identify potential savings for future years, the Herald-Leader reported. He also pushed back against Ferguson’s conversations with staff, saying it was inappropriate for board members to discuss management decisions outside official channels.
The emails foreshadowed what became a worsening fiscal picture. By May 2025, the superintendent acknowledged a projected $16 million shortfall in the district’s roughly $848 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Later in the summer, he told the board that the contingency fund — required by policy to stay above 6 percent of the budget — had dropped from an expected $42 million to just $26.3 million, according to the Herald-Leader.
The newspaper also reported that in an Aug. 27 letter, an attorney for district budget director Anne Sampson-Grimes said she had been placed on leave to prevent her from sharing information with the board. Liggins did not immediately respond to the Herald-Leader’s request for comment Saturday.
Ferguson continued pressing Liggins in follow-up emails. On Dec. 5, 2024, she told him staff had already seen reductions and criticized what she called a lack of transparency. Liggins again insisted the process was routine and warned Ferguson against entertaining staff complaints.
In a later exchange on Jan. 10, 2025, Ferguson questioned his suggestion that laws could be implicated when staff bypassed supervisors to contact board members. She told the Herald-Leader that she had opposed the district’s fiscal year 2025 budget when it was adopted last fall, citing unrealistic expense projections, and said the unfolding shortfall has validated her concerns.
Ferguson also criticized what she described as a “culture of fear and intimidation” within the district. “It’s troubling that staff, many of whom are also FCPS parents and taxpayers, are portrayed as breaking the law simply for raising concerns with an elected representative,” she told the Herald-Leader.
The superintendent’s December reassurances and the subsequent unraveling of the district’s financial outlook come as the board and community grapple with how to restore stability and trust in Fayette County schools.
