States have long complained that the federal government orders them to do this and that -- then walks away when the bills come due. Now counties are making the same charge against state governors and legislatures.

• Counties are generally responsible for jails, sheriffs, courts, roads, libraries and so forth -- but these services are being squeezed as they search for funds to meet unfunded mandates imposed by state governments.

• Most state treasuries are flush with funds, but ballot measures or legislatures in three-quarters of states limit counties' ability to raise property taxes.

• State mandates leave counties with discretion over only 15 percent of their budgets on average, according to the National Association of Counties.

• · downgrading the debt of 70 percent of them in the past decade.

For example, in rural Butte County, north of Sacramento:

• The county government is closed on Fridays to save money, and the sheriff's department has stopped investigating house break-ins and auto thefts in unincorporated areas.

• The district attorney warns that 300 people accused of crimes -- some of them violent -- roam free because he lacks the funds to take them to court.

• The county auditor warns that Butte is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Although California law requires reimbursement of local governments for state mandates, counties contend the state only makes good on a few mandates. Among the mandates irking counties is a 1982 state law that transferred to them some responsibility for funding medical care for indigents. Another is a 1994 state law that set mandatory sentences for felons convicted of their second and third serious crimes; as a result, more than 325,000 county jail inmates were released early last year because of overcrowding.

Nationwide, about 32 percent of county spending is money received from the states.

Source: Dana Milbank, "Cash-Starved Counties Complain of Burdens States Impose on Them," Wall Street Journal, June 5, 1997.