April 9, 1984

New York City's streets could be cleaner, its fire code better enforced and more arrests made for serious crimes if the Koch administration improved its management practices, according to a private study of municipal services released yesterday. The study, by the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, said most of the nine services surveyed had shown some improvement in the last year, although it criticized what it said were setbacks in the Transit Authority and the Fire Department. It said both the transit and fire agencies would qualify for ''blooper awards'' if the budget commission made them. On the other hand, it praised the Sanitation Department as probably the best managed agency. The 73-page report said life in the city could be improved significantly if Mayor Koch would ''focus his attention on the serious business of achieving major improvements in municipal services.''

YLA EASON Company cars, special parking privileges and even annual physical examinations are very much in fashion when corporations hand out ''perks'' to their top executives. But the fastest-growing of these perquisites is personal financial counseling, according to the Hay/Huggins Company, a benefits consulting company based in Philadelphia. At a time when many companies are cutting back on perks, this one has grown 37 percent in the past four years. In 1983, 26 percent of the 854 companies in a Hay/Huggins study provided personal financial counseling to some executives. This is up from 24 percent in 1982 and 20 percent in 1981.

DAVID E. SANGER In two weeks Apple Computer Inc. plans to introduce a briefcase-size, battery-operated version of its popular Apple IIe that analysts say could pose a significant challenge to the International Business Machine Corporation's PCjr home computer. The new Apple IIc, the company's first portable computer, will be shown to the public on April 24 in San Francisco. Its introduction, at a base price of $1,295, marks the second major product announcement by Apple in three months aimed directly at I.B.M.'s growing share of the personal computer market; the Macintosh, Apple's powerful and so far highly successful entry against the I.B.M. Personal Computer, was brought out in late January. ''It's going to get exciting,'' said Lissa Morganthaler, an analyst for Woodman, Kirkpatrick and Gilbreath. ''I.B.M. is really going to have to sit up and pay attention.'' The Apple announcement comes at a time when I.B.M.'s PCjr is reported to be off to a rocky start, with many dealers saying that consumers are finding the machine too expensive and, with its small keyboard and limited ability to run other I.B.M. programs, awkward to use.

Each autumn, Brooklyn's Satmar Hasidim begin making matzohs for the coming spring. A clamorous assembly line of 30 women, printed scarves hiding their hair and lace aprons cinching their waists, wrestle with plump wads of dough until the loaves are thin enough. Now and then the rhythm slows for an exchange of gossip or a lesson in technique, but they know they must work quickly if they are to complete the enormous task ahead: producing 100,000 pounds of the crisp, unleavened bread by mid-April. Not too far away, in Long Island City, Queens, the Horowitz Margareten factory is also at peak production. Here, claw-like mixing forks and half-ton rollers do the work, making 780,000 sheets of matzoh a day, or 1,250 a minute. Roughly 60,000 pounds of flour make the 18-minute trip through the works daily, and the factory uses more flour in a week than the Satmar bakery uses in a year.

International The size of Argentina's foreign debt is a mystery. The new Government still does not know the magnitude of what it owes because of incomplete records left by the previous regime. (Page A1.)