(AP) The Illinois Supreme Court has struck down a state law designed to narrow multibillion-dollar deficits in Chicago’s employee pension funds.

The court released the decision Thursday.

The Legislature and former Gov. Pat Quinn approved the plan in 2014, to rescue two of the city’s chronically underfunded pension programs that cover 61,000 current and retired municipal civil servant workers.

The two accounts are short by about $8 billion. Workers such as librarians, health care aides and non-teaching public school employees are covered by one fund, while city laborers are covered by another.

The law reduced pension benefits and required significantly higher city contributions. The city warned the funds would be insolvent within 15 years without the change.