Performing arithmetic operations on output of `wc -l`

Hi
I want to perform arithmetic operations on output of `wc -l`.
for example

user046@sshell ~ $ ls -l
total 0

where "total 0" will increase one line in wc -l

filecount=`ls -l | wc -l`

here $filecount will be 1 but is should be 0
how to get rid of it ?

Omit -l option, use just ls

Regards
Peasant.