The Eighteen-Hour Resignation
Fayette County's superintendent emailed his board chair at 3 a.m. asking to step away, the district announced his resignation by evening, and he took it back before bedtime. Kay and Pete walk through the whiplash week at FCPS — the unanimous vote that put Demetrus Liggins on paid leave, the ninety-five million dollar loan underneath it all, and who's steering the state's second-largest school district now.
Transcript
PeteKay, walk me through one day. Tuesday, June ninth. What time does the email land?
KayThree thirteen in the morning. The superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools emails his board chair and says it is time to step away from the role, and that he wants to pursue a separation agreement.
PeteAnd by that evening, the district has publicly announced his resignation.
KayAnd by nine o one that night, he sends another email saying that was not a resignation. No resignation has occurred. Please cancel the special meeting.
Pete[sighs] Eighteen hours, two opposite positions, one very confused school district.
KayFrom The Lexington Times, this is Town Branch — the stories running under Lexington. I'm Kay.
PeteAnd I'm Pete. Today: the week Fayette County schools lost its superintendent. Sort of. Because the man we're talking about, Demetrus Liggins, is still technically the superintendent.
KayRight, and that distinction matters, so let's be precise about what the school board actually did. Wednesday night, June tenth, after about two and a half hours behind closed doors, the board voted five to nothing to place Doctor Liggins on paid administrative leave while it reviews his employment.
PeteNot fired. Not resigned. Paid leave, while a law firm called VanAntwerp conducts a review.
KayAnd two more unanimous votes the same night. One made assistant superintendent Bill Bradford the acting superintendent, effective immediately. The other retained that law firm. Board member Amanda Ferguson said it was nice to have a five to oh vote on three straight motions.
PeteWhich tells you the board wanted one thing above all — to look united after a very messy twenty-four hours.
KayAnd about that messy twenty-four hours. In the three a.m. email, Liggins didn't just ask to step away. He asked for a full year of compensation and benefits — July first of this year through the end of June, twenty twenty-seven.
PeteThe board's answer to that came from chair Tyler Murphy, and it was about as flat a no as boards give. He said the board is not entertaining any motions for a separation package, and that it is united behind Doctor Bradford.
KaySo no buyout on the table. He requested one. They declined to even take it up.
PeteNow here's my question. Superintendents don't email their board chair at three in the morning out of nowhere. What's underneath this?
KayMoney. The district's money. About a year ago a sixteen million dollar shortfall surfaced, and when the district dug in, it disclosed financial misstatements going back to two thousand eight. Overestimated property taxes, motor vehicle taxes, occupational taxes.
PeteAnd that hole got expensive fast. Just two weeks ago, in late May, the board approved a ninety-five million dollar loan to cover the bills until tax money arrives in September.
KayAlongside a budget roughly sixteen million dollars smaller than last year's. A hundred fifteen support positions cut or reduced. Close to two million dollars in staff pay cuts.
PeteSo when families hear superintendent drama, the real story is a district borrowing ninety-five million dollars to make payroll.
KayAnd there was already an independent report about it. Back in February, that same law firm found that Liggins did not properly oversee the finance and budget departments and did not keep the board fully informed — though, and this is the report's own language, not intentionally.
PeteThat caveat matters. Nobody has found wrongdoing here. The finding was about oversight, not intent, and the new review hasn't concluded anything yet.
KayHere's the part that makes this story almost Shakespearean. Demetrus Liggins is the reigning Kentucky Superintendent of the Year. The state superintendents association gave him that honor last summer.
PeteAnd in February of twenty twenty-five, the board renewed his contract through twenty twenty-nine — over a parent petition opposing it. His original deal in twenty twenty-one paid two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars a year.
KayWhich raises the question the teachers union is asking out loud. K Y one twenty United cast a no-confidence vote in district leadership — and they didn't stop at Liggins. They called for the resignation of board chair Tyler Murphy too.
PeteBecause the board approved those budgets, year after year. If the finances were misstated since two thousand eight, that predates Liggins by more than a decade. The accountability question is bigger than one man.
KaySo who's running the forty thousand student district this morning? Bill Bradford. Twenty-three years in education, started as a Spanish teacher at Lafayette High School, came up through school leadership jobs in Northern Kentucky and came back to Fayette County in twenty twenty-two.
PeteTransylvania grad, bilingual, and by the accounts from Wednesday night, the board and a fair slice of the public are behind him. His first message was about as plain as it gets — keep the focus on students and schools.
KayWhat we don't know is the timeline. The review is open-ended. Liggins could return, negotiate an exit, or be removed for cause down the road. Nobody, including the board, has said which.
PeteSo watch three things. What the VanAntwerp review finds. Whether the board's unity holds once it has to make a real decision about Liggins. And whether the no-confidence pressure lands on Murphy too.
KayThe next regular board meeting will be the first test. We'll be reading the minutes either way.
PeteThat's Town Branch for today. Sources for everything we said are in the show notes, including the full timeline.
KayTown Branch is produced by The Lexington Times. Our voices are synthetic, and our scripts are drafted with AI from Lexington Times reporting and the public record, then fact-checked before air. Read the sources for every episode at feeds dot lexington k y dot news slash podcast. [warm] We'll see you down the creek.
Town Branch is produced by The Lexington Times. The hosts are synthetic voices (ElevenLabs); episode scripts are drafted with Claude (Anthropic) from Lexington Times reporting and the public record, then fact-checked by the newsroom before publication. Every factual claim links to a source in the episode notes.