Money for schools, welfare and other services is raised mostly through local property taxes.

Maryland officials figure that unwanted pregnancies cost the state $454 million a year in prenatal care, welfare and other services.

In recent years, the scope of welfare and other services rendered to mentally handicapped people has changed and extended significantly.

Undocumented residents cannot apply for welfare or other services, so there is no consistent way to account for them.

By Sunday night the California Legislature had passed additional sales and other taxes and cut welfare and other services enough to erase all but $2 billion of the shortage.

Adding to the uncertainty for many charities is the question of whether tougher rules for welfare and other social services will, in fact, reduce need or expand it.

The costs of treating, housing, providing welfare and other services to AIDS patients will reach $1.2 billion a year in 1990-91 and about $1.9 billion by 1993-94, the report estimated.

In the end, the Governor and the Legislature agreed last Tuesday on $7.3 billion in new taxes, the largest increase in state history, and $5.1 billion in cuts in welfare and other services.

It is not so much that lawmakers in Washington are shifting responsibility for welfare and other social services into the hands of the states, and requiring single mothers on welfare to find jobs.

Moreover, this small investment today could result in potentially great savings in the future by reducing dependence on welfare and other social services.