Removing first character in a string

While writing a shell script i happen to store some value in a string. Lets say the value is 59788.
Now in this script i want to get the value 9788 removing the first charater 5. The original string length usually remains constant.

Is there a single line command to do this or any simple way to accomplish this in the script?

Thanks,
npn

a=59788
b=${a#.}
echo $b ###Not tested

length=$(echo $1|fold -1|wc -l)
((length=length-1))
str=$(echo $1 | fold -1|tail -$length | xargs echo|tr -d ' ')
echo $str

echo 59788|cut -c2-

echo 59788 | sed -e 's/.//'