Maryann Stimmer, cochairwoman of the Parents Association Presidents, said: "He's not the world's best manager, that's the truth.

"That's a number that is just amazing," said state Sen. Toni N. Harp, cochairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health.

The Issue of Control The commission's cochairwoman, Audrey G. Hochberg, Democrat of Scarsdale, also expressed doubts about whether extensive additional privatization would help the county.

"We're caught in the middle of this Ping-Pong game, and we have very little time," said Anne Teicher, the cochairwoman of the nonprofit coalition's hearings on the grant programs.

Mary Janeczek, the cochairwoman of the education department at nearby Elms College, has trained many of the city's English language teachers and is a former Education Department administrator.

State Senator Toni Harp, a Democrat of New Haven, and cochairwoman of the Committee on Appropriations, said: "Holding the line on the cuts to the Department of Social Services will be hard but we are trying to do that.

Others in the negotiations said that the grounds for Connecticut to appeal are limited since the deal was endorsed by the state's Departments of Environmental Protection and Public Utility Control and by the cochairwoman of the General Assembly's Environment Committee, Representative Patricia Widlitz.

"Originally conceived as a one-day crafts show to raise money for the fledgling Creative Arts Workshop," said Meryl Drabkin, cochairwoman of the event with Bob Arnstein, "it has evolved into a six-week prestigious national exhibition for contemporary crafts, probably the oldest and largest of its type in the state."