Funding public schools in Maryland will become even more expensive if the General Assembly enacts recommendations made by the Kirwan Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education — as it is likely to do.
 

The Kirwan Commission Funding Formula Workgroup proposes that by 2030, spending on Maryland public schools be increased by $4 billion a year more than what already is being spent — $2.8 billion from the state and $1.2 billion from local governments. (See: “Md. panel recommends ...,” Oct. 16 Times-News, Page 1A.)
 

Gov. Larry Hogan has said this would raise taxes by $6,200 for the average Maryland family. 
 

He said, “Unfortunately, the Kirwan Tax Hike Commission is hell-bent on spending billions more than we can afford, and legislators are refusing to come clean about where the money is going to come from.”
 

Former Allegany County Commissioner Bill Valentine, who served on the Kirwan Commission for 27 months, says in a reader commentary today that smaller counties cannot afford to pay what will be their expected share. (For our online readers, look under Menu/Opinion/Letters to CTN for “Counties can’t afford Kirwan.”)
 

The funding panel said some counties would pay no more than they already do, including Allegany County, but Valentine disagrees. By 2030, he said, Allegany County would pay $8.2 million more a year for education than it does now, and substantial annual increases would lead up to that.
 

Valentine attended a public meeting held earlier this month to discuss public education and voiced to us the same concerns he raises in his commentary. (See: “Views on public education exchanged at meeting,” Oct. 5 Times-News, Page 1A.)
 

“How are you going to pay for it?” he asked our reporter Greg Larry. “How do you make sure the counties can handle the spending increases and that the state won’t decide to cut back (on its contribution)?”
 

Topics included class sizes, teacher salaries, classroom supply shortages, the college and career readiness effort and a need for school bus attendants.
 

Robin Summerfield, a parent of children in Allegany County Public Schools, said, “The funding shortage means our schools and teachers do not have adequate resources to provide a world-class education to our children. They don’t have access to the most current textbooks, teachers are facing larger class sizes.
 

“When they juggle around schedules, sometimes classes are really small and sometimes very big. Public schools also struggle to get supplies into the classroom, and we sometimes lack the most modern technologies,” said Summerfield.
 

Sarah Llewellyn, a teacher of the year from Westernport Elementary School, said, “I don’t think our students are getting the opportunity to be the best they could be. When you sit in front of a classroom with 30-some students in front of you it is very difficult to meet the needs of the students on your own. And that is not counting the home life and what they are bringing to the class.”
 

Summerfield and Llewellyn are right.
 

However, we cannot disagree with Hogan and Valentine. If we spent all the money on education that some would like, little would be left for public safety or other services that local governments provide.
 

Education dollars should be spent wisely for such things as paying teachers a proper salary and hiring enough of them and providing school supplies to students whose families cannot afford them. But there should be no blank checks.
 

We’ll echo what Christopher B. Summers, president and CEO of the Maryland Public Policy Institute has said:

“Maryland’s education bureaucracy, which grew by 60 percent from 1992 to 2015, should be reformed to work for students before taxpayers are told to hand over an additional $3.8 billion (the original estimate) in new taxes annually.”
 

Eliminate what isn’t essential so we can better afford to pay for what is needed.
 

We cannot depend upon local school systems to do this, so another commission should be formed to identify and find ways to eliminate unnecessary administrative positions and other forms of waste, thus freeing more money to be spent in classrooms.
 

The reaction from the education establishment would be about like what you could expect if you tried to get between a mother bear and her cubs.
 

Anyway, this is just a pipe dream, especially in a state whose “progressive” government apparently believes the forest where money grows on trees is found in the pockets of taxpayers.
 

Valentine urges local officials to attend hearings the General Assembly will hold next year on the Kirwan proposals.
 

The metropolitan area lawmakers who rule the legislature paid no attention to the concerns of Maryland’s smaller and less-affluent counties when they voted earlier this year to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
 

Don’t expect them to listen to us when it comes to Kirwan.