On Tuesday, Sept. 16, the Jefferson County Board of Education, JCPS Superintendent Brian Yearwood, JCPS Chief Financial Officer Eddie Muns and Executive Budget Administrator Thomas Aberli spent a regular meeting outlining the budget for the 2025-2026 school year and dourly forecasting the budget’s near future. Muns and Aberli said that, if JCPS does not reduce its budget, the district will go bankrupt by October 2027, and after that, it is state law to dissolve JCPS.
Board members eventually asked why this was relatively new information for them, and Muns admitted that he, under former superintendent Marty Pollio’s direction, had not told the complete story about the budget in past reports. This was done so that the district would continue passing budgets under a “special situation” that led the board to believe that it had more money than it really did.
When the meeting began, Yearwood asked to approve the new budget, a procedural measure to set debate in motion.
“As we move forward with the ‘26-‘27 budget, we will remain grounded in three core standards,” Yearwood said.
“One: central office will aspire to have the highest share of reductions,” he began. “Two: we are committed to maintaining salaries and avoiding universal pay cuts. Three: we will protect the integrity of the classroom and the student experience.”
The Budget Slideshow
With that, Muns began his and Aberli’s presentation.
He updated the board on revenue sources and said that JCPS is getting more SEEK (Support Educational Excellence in Kentucky) money from the state and that the city would assess 6.6% of properties for their tax value in the next year. He also predicted that local revenue would slow, which would damage JCPS’s financial prospects.
He broke down exactly how much money comes from which sources — 61.8% from property taxes, 14.0% from the state (SEEK) and 23.8% from the state through teacher retirement and health insurance benefits.
72% of the district’s money will be spent directly on schools, with some of the remaining costs going towards utilities and management. 5.2% is marked for “Business Offices.”
The presentation quickly turned grave. The district is bringing in $1,609,751,118 and will spend $1,798,213,875, leaving a budget deficit of over $188 million.
Muns said that he would implement stricter “reporting requirements” and “budget standards” to make sure they are never in this kind of deficit again, but maintained that “it was not the board’s fault.”
JCPS had run a deficit for several years prior, but because of some outside circumstances and some budget surpluses, had enough money to comfortably spend without trying to balance. Muns made it clear that this is over.
“We are currently forecasting that our cash will reach zero in October 2026,” he said. “Cash is how we pay our employees and our vendors.”
Once the money is depleted, JCPS can sell some assets that it has. But once those are gone, Muns said, the district may be dissolved under state law. He also said that, because a budget can only be put in place for the 2026-2027 school year when that year begins, they will be forced to make sales for that year, but that cuts will still happen — the sales will not be enough.
“The signs are irrefutably clear that next fall we will be selling off assets in order to pay payroll,” Aberli said. “And the fall after that, we will not have enough assets to sell off anymore. And we will not reach that point because at that stage there will no longer be a Jefferson County Public Schools.” He said that, with “significant cash reductions,” the district can be in balance or surplus until at least 2032.
Board members share their thoughts
After a long silence, the board started asking questions.
Trevin Bass (District 4) tried to find other avenues to get money that don’t involve as many cuts. Aberli said that some fundraising might be possible, though he didn’t give examples or indicate that the money raised would be anywhere close to $188 million.
Linda Duncan (District 5) asked about online teaching to save money, but Bass and Aberli were skeptical that it could meaningfully reduce cost. Studies have shown that students learning online fare much worse than ones learning in person.
Taylor Everett (District 7) was elected in 2024, after the budget became bloated. “Could we operate this school district,” he asked, “to actually have a balanced budget?”
“Yes,” Muns replied.
“Why have we not done it? Why have we chosen not to do it?” Everett asked.
After the two explained JCPS’s cash balance for the last few years and how it was allowed to run a deficit, Everett asked if it would be possible to prevent JCPS from running a deficit in the future. The two said yes, but that budgets need some flexibility for emergencies.
Everett then asked if the money JCPS sends to external vendors ($300 million, Muns and Aberli estimated) could be reduced.
“If we got a 2% reduction, that would be pretty nice,” Everett said.
Over the last several years, JCPS has given $110 million dollars to teachers in cost of living adjustments (COLA).
“When you’re negotiating with the unions to come up with those numbers, I’m assuming that we’re saying, ‘Hey, we can’t afford this,’” Everett said. He said that he has not been on the board long enough to be involved in those negotiations.
“We wouldn’t sign on to something that we didn’t think there was a possibility,” Aberli said.
After asking for an oral report from Muns and Aberli at the end of every board meeting from now until January, James Craig (District 3) said that he did not regret any of the decisions JCPS made with their cash flow. Duncan agreed. Craig then asked about the budget-cutting plan in front of them, but Muns corrected that the budget being approved was not the one with all the cost-cutting measures. That one will not be pitched until January.
“Dr. Yearwood, I challenge you for the next year, don’t let the budget being balanced be the main focus,” Craig said. Yearwood had already outlined his student-first priorities and Craig had heard, several times by this point, that a budget deficit would eventually mean the end of JCPS.
Misleading budget reports from the Chief Financial Officer
When Board President Corrie Shull (District 6) asked a probing question, Muns confessed that they had removed details from budget reports under Pollio, who retired in May of this year.
“If you look at our working budgets over the last three years, you see that there’s a story being told in there,” Muns said. “I wrote those, I typed them up, but they weren’t always the full, complete story that I provided because they were reviewed by the leadership of this district before they were finalized.” He said that the decisions wouldn’t have affected the board’s decision making anyway and that “we’ve done awesome things in this district.”
“So am I right to hear you say that you were directed to mislead the board in your narrative on the financial position?” Shull asked.
Muns explained. Once, for instance, he said he had removed a chart showing how much division-by-division cost had increased. Shull asked him if this was not pertinent information.
“In discussions, it was not viewed as pertinent and relevant and maybe data that would be useful for creating — for throwing out allegations about JCPS more so than pertinent relevant data,” Muns said.
“But isn’t that deception?” Shull said.
“I would call it a judgment,” Muns said.
After Shull asked a few more questions about cutting the current budget to sell fewer assets in 2026, Muns and Aberli told him that, because of yearlong contracts with most JCPS employees, there was not much that could be done.
Debate shortly ended, and following a silence, there was a motion to approve the budget. It passed unanimously.
The board then approved $2.3 million in service contracts; after some debate, they agreed that they improved the student experience.
