Child-care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state's child-care-services budget after speaking with top officials in Governor Pat Quinn's office earlier this month. And the governor's budget office then told a Senate appropriations committee that no such cuts were being planned.
But when the governor last week unveiled his proposed budget for next fiscal year, he included a $350-million net cut in child-care spending, according to the House Democrats' analysis of the proposal.