Reinstate FCPS Energy & Sustainability Team: Don't Cut the Programs That Pay for Themselves

Fayette County Public Schools has laid off its two-person Sustainability Team which is a decision that will cost students, classrooms, and our community far more than it will ever save.

These positions are not a budget luxury. They are a proven financial engine. Since the department launched 16 years ago, smart utility audits and sustainability initiatives have redirected $31.7 million away from utilities back into our classrooms. Last year alone they achieved nearly $4 million in cost avoidance.  The 5-yr Sustainability Action Plan will generate $500,000 in verified savings every single year which is three times the combined salaries of the two employees who were let go. Cutting them doesn't fix a budget problem. It creates one.

But the financial case is only part of the story.

What our students lose:

The FCPS Sustainability Team provides direct environmental literacy instruction to over 600 students every year. They coordinate districtwide Outdoor Classrooms, school gardens, Farm to School programs, Living Lab hard hat construction tours and campus tree plantings. They support every school's own Sustainability Coordinator and student Green Team and recently launched the Seal of Environmental Literacy, a high school credential that opens doors.

This kind of hands-on environmental education does more than teach facts.  It builds the critical thinking, systems awareness, and problem-solving skills that employers across every industry increasingly demand. From clean energy and engineering to public health and urban planning, the fastest-growing careers of the next decade are rooted in environmental literacy. Students who graduate without this foundation are less prepared to compete, and less equipped to lead.

Most importantly, they lead the Bluegrass Youth Sustainability Council, a student-driven program through which more than 450 Lexington high school students have installed bottle refilling stations, solar benches, and recycling stations in every Lexington high school; planted over 200 campus trees; conducted more than 50 energy audits of FCPS buildings; and removed over 325 pounds of litter from school grounds. These are students learning to solve real problems in their real community and are exactly the kind of experiences that prepares a young person for life after graduation, experiences that disappear the moment institutional expertise walks out the door.

The two person department also facilitates $80,000/year in recycling savings and secures $75,000/year in grant-funded projects which are savings and programs that impact students every day.

This work earned FCPS the U.S. Department of Education National Green Ribbon District Award in 2019 and recognition from the U.S. Green Building Council as the Best School District in 2016. Those honors didn't happen by accident. They happened because two dedicated professionals built something remarkable over 16 years.

Financial mismanagement at the district level is a real problem that demands real accountability, but cutting the people who are actively saving the district money while preparing our students to lead real-world sustainability solutions is not accountability. It is sabotage.

We, the undersigned, call on the FCPS Board of Education to reinstate the Sustainability Team immediately and to protect the programs that are simultaneously teaching our kids and funding their education.