UK refuses to indicate receipts for leaders’ worldwide journeys

University of Kentucky’s top administrators spent nearly $270,000 on travel during a recent three-year span, but are refusing to say what that cash paid for.

According to a Herald-Leader review of publicly available travel records, the five university officials took 185 trips from 2023 to 2025.

But the specific details of the travel are scant.

Some trips were within Kentucky, like a $451 visit to Ashland that President Eli Capilouto took in July 2024 for Royal Blue Health board meeting, a UK limited liability company connected to healthcare.

Other trips were out of the country, records show.

Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Eric Monday and General Counsel William Thro traveled to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean in 2023 and 2024. Monday and Thro also went to London, England, every May in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The total spent on those London trips was $31,147.

What did they spend money on in Ashland or Grand Cayman? How many days did they stay?

University officials won’t say.

The Lexington Herald-Leader has filed multiple requests under the Kentucky Open Records Act since December 2025 to obtain receipts and travel documents for five top UK officials including Capilouto, Monday, Thro, Provost and Executive Vice President of Health Affairs Robert DiPaola, and Chief Audit Executive Joe Reed.

The newspaper also requested all documents related to trips to Grand Cayman and London. Travel documents show those trips were for Insure Blue board meetings, which is one of at least five limited liability corporations created by university officials over the past several years.

The university denied all of those requests.

Each time, officials claimed the Herald-Leader’s requests were “unreasonably burdensome,” even as the newspaper pared down the scope of documents sought.

“The Open Records staff would have to carefully review each page and redact protected information such as phone numbers, emails, credit card numbers and emergency contact information,” officials said in one such refusal on May 1.

The refusal to release information about travel costs comes as the state’s flagship university faces increased scrutiny over its governance and spending. That scrutiny has intensified after UK announced retiring Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart would receive a $950,000 position. Barnhart has since rejected the position after pushback from Gov. Andy Beshear, athletics boosters and others in the community.

Beshear, in a rare move, criticized UK’s leaders in late April, saying in a social media post he had concerns about their “management and decision-making.”

Michael Abate, a lawyer for the Kentucky Press Association who also represents the Herald-Leader, blasted the university’s denial of records he said should be public.

“UK’s response is shocking, frankly,” Abate stated. “These were narrowly tailored requests targeted to expensive trips that UK officials took to London and the Cayman Islands, purportedly on university business. The public has a right to see how its money is being spent in those places.

“UK’s denial is not in good faith, and makes it look like they have something to hide.”

UK says travel records available online

University officials pointed to its transparency page, which lists trips taken in 2023, 2024 and 2025 for five UK officials, to show it is open about travel. At the time the page was unveiled in January 2026, Capilouto touted the university’s commitment to transparency.

“One topic that has generated questions — posed to both university leaders and other community leaders — is travel by members of the senior administration. To provide clarity, we have published three years of travel records, detailing each trip’s destination, purpose and cost,” Capilouto wrote.

According to the release, those travel records would be updated on the website quarterly. The university has failed to do so. The latest travel records are from December 2025.

Jay Blanton, a spokesperson for UK, said those trips have resulted in partnerships that have boosted UK’s bottom line.

“The University of Kentucky is more transparent about the travel of senior administrators and associated costs than any public institution in the state. The travel reported by UK has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in partnerships — far exceeding the costs — that have benefited students and the entire campus community,” Blanton said.

However, other public institutions have released more travel records and receipts than UK.

In September 2025, the Herald-Leader requested and received 950 pages of receipts and travel documents for Fayette County Public Schools Superintendent Demetrus Liggins spanning from January 2023 to May 2025. The public school district, which has also faced scrutiny over its budget and spending, supplied the newspaper those redacted receipts. .

VisitLex, the city’s tourism board, also provided the newspaper with credit card and other travel records from 2023 and 2025, for an April 2026 Herald-Leader story about the group’s budget and expenses.

UK defends travel

The five UK officials took approximately 185 trips between January 2023 and December 2025, according to travel documents, at a total cost of $268,937.

Monday took 96 trips over the three year-period, by far the most trips of the five administrators. That’s twice as may as Capilouto, who took 45 trips during the same time frame. Reed, the chief audit officer, took the fewest trips with four over the three-year span.

UK documentation shows the reasons for travel are varied — and often vague.

In December 2024, Monday traveled to New York for a “UK basketball game and associated events” at a cost of $1,094. Also in December 2024, Capilouto traveled to Las Vegas for an “Athletics Hall of Fame event,” according to the records. Capilouto spent $3,798 on that trip. The documents don’t say how long administrators stayed; only the month of travel.

In some cases, multiple trips are bundled under one entry. For example, in June 2024, Monday attended an NCAA baseball tournament and meetings on “university utility strategies.” The locations listed are New Orleans and Omaha, Nebraska. Monday spent $3,697 on those two trips.

Blanton said travel helps UK build partnerships, which has netted investments in software and other pursuits. He cited the following partnerships generated from UK officials’ travel:

• A recently announced partnership with Microsoft will be valued in the tens of millions of dollars. It has made AI tools like Copilot available to every employee and student, saving them time and the institution resources and dollars, Blanton said.
• A partnership with Fidelity has enabled UK to be the first university in the country to offer every single student their own investment account. Nearly 40% of students have an account, Blanton said.
• A historic $50 million gift from the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation on behalf of pediatric care in Kentucky necessitated travel and work with the foundation, Blanton said.
• The university is considering the development of a multi-use, entertainment district in the heart of the campus and/or adjacent to other sports facilities and venues. “We have visited a number of sites where there are existing such districts as part of a process to determine the development’s feasibility and viability at UK,” Blanton said.

Why Grand Cayman and England?

Some of the most expensive out-of-country trips by senior UK officials were on behalf of Insure Blue, a limited liability corporation based in the Cayman Islands.

Monday and Thro traveled to London and the Cayman Islands for five board meetings for Insure Blue at the two locations over the three-year period, travel records show. The total amount is not known because Monday’s travel expenses for the 2024 Cayman Islands trip also included trips to other cities.

UK officials said Cayman Islands regulations say those board meetings have to occur in either the Cayman Islands or a country of the British Commonwealth. The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory, like Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.

Insure Blue was originally started by King’s Daughters Medical Center in Ashland as a way for the hospital to provide medical malpractice insurance. When King’s Daughters became part of UK in 2022, Insure Blue also became part of the university, Blanton said. The Cayman Islands government had to approve the transfer of Insure Blue to UK at the time UK acquired King’s Daughters, he said.

Insure Blue is a captive insurance company, meaning it is a subsidiary of a company, which then buys its insurance from that subsidiary. Many large hospital systems have captive insurance companies, Blanton said.

Many captive insurance companies are based in the Caymans or other Caribbean islands for regulatory and tax reasons.

The university buys its insurance from Insure Blue rather than a for-profit insurance company, Blanton said. The university estimates it has saved $5.7 million by insuring its medical malpractice coverage through Insure Blue rather than the commercial market.

“Under Cayman laws and regulations, Insure Blue must hold two board meetings per year, and those meetings must be in Cayman or a British Commonwealth country,” Blanton said.

When the board meeting is in London, the Insure Blue board members attend Lloyd’s of London insurance market to purchase reinsurance for catastrophic medical malpractice claims, a practice that dates back 20 years. Lloyd’s prefers those meetings with potential clients be face-to-face meetings. Lloyd’s of London prefers the Cayman trip occurs during an annual conference on financial, legal, and management issues related to captive insurance companies, Blanton said.

Other Insure Blue board members who also attend those meetings are Associate Vice President for Administration James Frazier, the Deputy General Counsel for Risk Management Margaret Pisacano, and outside consultant Stephen Addington. UK also pays for those trips for those three other board members, Blanton said.

The Herald-Leader asked for travel receipts for Frazier, Pisacano and Addington, but the university denied those requests, too.

It’s not clear how much money UK spends to send all board members to London and Grand Cayman each year.

Still, UK stands by its denial of those receipts and records.

Blanton said prior Kentucky Attorney General opinions support the university’s claims that redacting information from those travel receipts would take too much time and therefore do not have to be released.

“Because producing the individual receipts would require the redaction of significant personal information including addresses, phone numbers, emergency contacts, credit card numbers and airline/hotel loyalty numbers, the University regards a request for all receipts as unreasonably burdensome,” Blanton said.

This story was initially printed June 9, 2026 at 5:00 AM.