Last month we reported the story of a small Arkansas county whose budget shortfall was threatening its ability to stock county buildings with essential supplies -- toilet paper, for example.

If Arkansas's plight only made you chuckle, perhaps you'll sit up straight in the stall when you learn that municipal offices in Buffalo, N.Y. have begun a BYOTP policy.

"It's almost humorous, but it's disgusting," said Bob Fioretti, who has worked in Erie County's Rath Building for 21 years. "When people got to bring their own toilet paper and soap to wash their hands, it's like working in another country, a bad country," he told WGRZ-TV. Fioretti said there was waste piling up in some of the toilets.

Buffalo, which is home to nearly one million people, has had to slash 2,000 jobs and cut services to close a $100 million-plus shortfall in its $1.1 billion budget. Rather than raise the sales tax, it cut funding for personnel, health clinics, auto bureaus, snowplowing, parks, the arts, school nurses and others services. But the toilet paper rollbacks are likely to get people's attention. As local commentator Donn Esmonde put it, "We can live without parks, but we draw the line at toilet paper."

When the county budget is flush again, we suggest a taxation public relations campaign which might begin by having the toilet paper the county supplies embossed with the message "Your tax dollars at work" or "Not all your tax dollars go down the drain -- just some of them."