CAPITAL REGION — The big question on Wall Street now is where more hurt will pop up next. All Schoharie County residents have to do to answer that question is look at their tax bills.

Six months after the subprime mortgage crisis claimed investing banking behemoth Bear Stearns, it returned to Wall Street Monday to send Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch & Co. into the hands of Bank of America. By the end of the chaotic day, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 504 points, William Cherry knew his job just got harder.

“When the state is facing a fiscal crisis, inevitably the county is going to bear the brunt of it,” said Cherry, Schoharie County’s treasurer.

As Wall Street’s troubles whittle away New York’s trove of taxable income, county and municipal governments are increasingly facing pressure to foot bills that the state can no longer afford to pay. In Schoharie County, that could equate to a 10 percent to 15 percent property tax rate increase — the county’s first increase since 2006.

As Wall Street’s woes spread — now touching 30,000 workers at three investment banks — Gov. David Paterson said, “The world as we know it in finance is changing.” Workers at Bear, Merrill and Lehman received roughly 10 percent of the wages and 15 percent of the bonuses paid on Wall Street.

Attempting to brace New York for shortfalls in tax revenues from Wall Street, Paterson last month called for 6 percent across-the-board budget cuts. Those cuts came on top of a similar but smaller spending reduction in March.

“We’re seeing higher costs and lower revenues, and that leaves taxpayers caught between a rock and a hard place,” Cherry said.

Taken together, Paterson’s cuts will result in an $800,000 shortfall in the $8.7 million in state aid Schoharie County officials had budgeted for this year. Experts worry that lawmakers from Main Street to the Capitol will prolong the state’s economic downturn by raising taxes, as they did in 2003 and the early 1990s.

“The state’s financial outlook has gone from bad to worse,” said Edmund McMahon, director of the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative think tank in Albany.

Wall Street’s Monday tumult will likely have few direct impacts in the Capital Region. Lehman Brothers six years ago pulled out of the Albany market by closing its office on State Street.

Merrill has an office on South Pearl Street, but a Bank of America spokesman could not say what would happen to that operation. The Charlotte, N.C., bank, which is buying Merrill for $50 billion in stock, already has a banking and investment center at the Century Hill Plaza office complex in Latham.

McMahon’s biggest concern about Albany was that legislators would respond “in the worst possible way”: a combination of tax increases and “ill-advised” spending cuts. He referred to Wall Street as the goose that lays golden eggs for the state; a goose lawmakers squeeze harder when the golden eggs stop coming.

Rather than tax hikes, McMahon favors slowing growth for government spending and enabling local governments to better address their budgetary needs. He suggested making state laws less favorable to public employee unions and lowering expectations for school aid increases.

“We don’t just need belt tightening. We need fundamental restructuring,” McMahon said.

Between 2000 and 2003, Wall Street’s total wages fell from $48.7 billion to $38 billion as New York reeled from the dot-com bubble burst and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. By January 2003, the state was facing an $11.5 billion shortfall, which lawmakers attempted to tackle partly with temporary income and sales tax increases, according to Frank Mayo, the executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank in Albany.

“I don’t think we’ll end up where we ended up in 2003,” Mayo said.

Unlike five years ago, when the state was facing a real multibillion shortfall, Mayo said the state is now facing projected shortfalls. While he said the state is proactively addressing the fiscal crisis, the extent of damage Wall Street can inflict on New York is not certain.

Back in Schoharie County, Paul Hogan was having a surprisingly quiet day at Fenimore Asset Management. Hogan is a research analyst for the independent investment advisory firm and he also co-manages its $100 million FAM Equity Income Fund. He had expected to receive many panicked calls from investors, but instead only received a few.

Hogan remained optimistic that the stock market will rally again, as it did in the wake of Bear Stearns’ near collapse and the federal government’s seizure last week of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Wall Street’s recovery from Monday “will probably take less time than people think.”

“This is just one more step in a number of steps that have to be taken to fix the financial system. There will be more to come in the market, but the market will get through them,” Hogan said.