December 6, 1990

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has announced plans to cut subsidies to its parochial elementary schools by nearly half, a move that could reduce revenues of schools in poorer areas by 25 percent or more. Diocesan officials have told the pastors and principals to submit proposals for economizing or raising new funds by Dec. 15. Some schools are holding meetings of parents or elected parish councils to discuss solutions.

AT home in the evening, some people like to lower the window shades, dim the living-room lights and turn up the compact-disk player. But why can't the house do those simple tasks itself? Why not a house with an electronic brain that would take those steps automatically at a preset hour or at the touch of a button? And why can't the house remember to turn off the kitchen and playroom lights at the same time and raise the shades the next morning to let in the sun's warmth on a cold day?

In the latest example of a drug maker bowing to pressure from Congress and the public over high-priced medicines, a Swiss-owned company has decided to make a sharp cut in the cost of treatment with a drug that helps thousands of schizophrenia patients. The treatment has been rejected by many Federal and state hospitals because of its steep price. The company, the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Corporation, has charged $8,944 for a year's supply of clozapine, but that includes a blood-monitoring system that the company insisted was necessary because of possible dangerous side effects.

Who was that 6-foot-4, white-haired man firing a TEC-9 semiautomatic weapon the other day on East 20th Street in Manhattan? Hint: It was a United States Senator (but not Alfonse M. D'Amato, who was the target of considerable flak himself four years ago after he donned a disguise and ventured uptown undercover to dramatize the availability of illegal drugs). The gun-toting Senator was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And in the privacy of the Police Academy, the New York Democrat was test-firing drug dealers' weapon of choice.

The question of whether state leaders will keep their pledge to close a $1 billion budget gap without taxes, borrowing or fiscal gimmickry seemed to turn today on political semantics. As Gov. Mario M. Cuomo indicated his openness to filling part of the gap by deferring a portion of state workers' salaries to future years, he spent much of a news conference denying that such a plan would constitute a gimmick. He also argued that a 1 percent surcharge on hospital revenues, which he is pushing as an alternative to Medicaid cuts that he had previously proposed, should not be considered a tax. Heated Debate While their staff members negotiated those and other proposals in private, the Governor and legislative leaders showed sensitivity about how the public would perceive the newest initiatives. The most heated debate revolved around the plan to defer pay, which one fiscal monitor said was clearly a gimmick and which an influential credit analyst warned would further burden the state's long-term debt.