In the final hours ahead of the veto period, Kentucky lawmakers passed legislation that would require all Jefferson County Public School board members to run again at the end of the year for fewer districts. Instead of keeping Kentucky’s largest city at seven districts, Senate Bill 4 reduces the number to five — the same as other school boards in the state.
Some JCPS school board members supported the measure, while others took issue, but the bill passed through both chambers Wednesday night with the late-night changes and it now heads to the governor. Rep. Jason Nemes, a Republican from Middletown, presented the changes to SB4 on the House floor.
“Most importantly, the Kentucky Supreme Court has said that's required recently, when they said that JCPS must be treated the same,” Nemes said.
The legislature also passed Senate Bill 1, which specifically targets JCPS to shift power away from the board and toward the superintendent. The court struck down a nearly identical version in late 2025, but lawmakers say the new version passes constitutional muster thanks to a lengthy list of rationales.
Lawmakers have long-targeted JCPS with interventions, but lawmakers this session said recent financial woes demanded action. An earlier version of SB4 would have added two members with financial expertise appointed by the Kentucky State Treasurer, for a total of seven members. However, the version that cleared both chambers did not include those appointed financial experts.
District 7 board member Taylor Everett, who represents southeastern Jefferson County, said he supports SB4, as did District 3 board member James Craig in the northeastern part of the county.
“I only supported it because it was the lesser of two evils,” Everett said. Both he and Craig worried lawmakers were also considering more extreme options, such as creating an entirely appointed board. That measure was floated in Senate Bill 114, which did not receive a committee assignment.
There were concerns that the initial maps lawmakers drew to shift JCPS to five districts would have condensed two majority Black areas, weakening Black voting power. Kentucky Public Radio created a map using the latest version of the legislation and showed it to lawmakers.
Louisville Democratic Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong said she had not seen a map until KPR showed it to her after lawmakers had already voted. She said looking at the maps does not immediately tell her if voting power for some minority groups would be weakened, but that the speed of the process did not allow her to ask those important questions.
“Given the fast timeline, obviously we didn’t have a chance to engage in that really important inquiry,” Chambers Armstrong said. “My hope is that moving forward we can be more deliberative about some of these changes.”
JCPS board chair Corrie Shull said he believes downsizing the board would not help it solve the problems the district is facing.
“Reducing the board to five just amounts to reduced representation,” Shull said. “I don’t understand how lawmakers see that as helpful.”
In a Bluesky post, former JCPS board chair Chris Brady also criticized the measure, saying the shift would be “untenable.”
“At seven, each board member has roughly the same constituency as a state senator,” Brady wrote. “As is, that’s a major lift for what’s essentially an elected volunteer position.”
Board members in Jefferson County will have to immediately run again for their seats at the end of the year. Craig said he had already decided he would not run for another term, citing the needs of his family and law practice, but he said board members should not run from facing the voters again.
“Anybody who is afraid of standing in front of the voters probably shouldn't be here anyway,” Craig told KPR.
In Fayette County Public Schools, current board Chair Tyler Murphy would be ousted from his seat and prevented from running again for school board under SB4. The measure prohibits employees who work 100 days or more in one school district from serving on the board of another. Murphy is a teacher for Boyle County Schools.
Murphy is also the subject of an impeachment petition filed by Republican Rep. Matt Lockett, of Nicholasville, over the district’s financial woes under Murphy’s leadership. SB 4 no longer affects FCPS governance, however, because the board is already made up of five members.
