As the Wall Street meltdown unfolded last week, we sure hope local officials were paying attention to the details.

The stories about major investment banks crashing and government bailouts generated the national and global headlines, but for New York residents, the impact from the past seven days will continue to be felt long after the dust settles on the national coverage.

And that's why local government needs to start getting ready. With Wall Street generating a fifth of the state's revenues annually, the pain will certainly start spreading into upstate.

State experts are looking at up to 40,000 private sector jobs and $3 billion in tax revenues disappearing in the next two years.

All of this adds up to what seems like an inevitable wave of state aid cuts.

What does that mean for city, town, county and village governments, not to mention school districts? It's hard to say at this point, but it would be wise for officials for all of these entities to start making contingency plans. They need to look at how much they rely on the state for funding, and how they can handle cuts in those revenue streams.

Now is the time for frank discussions about what kinds of services might have to be sacrificed, or whether tax rates might need to go up. Now is the time to discuss general budget fund balances, and whether tapping into them is wise policy.

At the same time, local officials must demand that the state legislators representing this area help them gather as much information as possible about the financial situation. Those legislators need to be honest, too, which might be tough because we're in an election season.

However, failure to work on these issues now will only result in rushed, and potentially foolish, decisions later.