SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois' public-employee pensions system is so far in debt that it is "unfixable," an influential business group said Wednesday.

The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago told its members in a memo that even current retirees' benefits must be cut and other drastic action taken to prevent pension-program bankruptcy, the memo said.

"The pension crisis has grown so severe that it is now unfixable," former state attorney general Tyrone Fahner, the committee's president, wrote. "We do not make that statement lightly. It is an honest statement that no one — not our legislators, nor our governor, nor labor leaders — is willing to say publicly."