When Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent Demetrus Liggins announced Aug. 14 he would retire from the district, he called himself a budget whistleblower.
In the retirement notice, which the Fayette County Board of Education accepted unanimously earlier this week, Liggins referenced his June complaint with the state’s Office of Education Accountability and said he is “blowing the whistle on fraud, waste, and abuse.”
His retirement came shortly after Moody’s downgraded the school district’s credit ratings due to years of financial instability and misstatements.
“The Moody’s downgrade of yesterday was the last straw, no matter how the administration would prefer to spin the School Board’s failures,” Liggins said in a news release provided by Amos Jones, his lawyer.
“Given this runaway circus from the top, Moody’s was left to draw the unfavorable conclusions laid bare yesterday. And this is why I will continue to work through the ongoing process at the Kentucky Office of Educational Accountability Office, where I am blowing the whistle on fraud, waste, and abuse. Our Fayette County students, teachers, and taxpayers deserve better than this, and the truth is coming out,” Liggins said in the news release.
However, through much of 2024 and into the fall of 2025, Liggins quashed questions from school board members and the public about the district’s finances and budget, a review of his public statements show. Three separate investigations have laid much of the blame for...
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