What is a higher authority?

Few places make the case for municipal bankruptcy in Illinois better than the city of Harvey. The city has reached such a state of dysfunction that both the state and the courts have stepped in.Harvey has just announced that it’s firing nearly half of its public safety employees because the city can’t afford to pay both its employees and its bills at the same time – the result of a law that lets the state confiscate Harvey tax revenues if the city skips its pension payments.

 The folks in bold are called higher authorities.  What are they going to do?  They have no tax revenues to confiscate,the unions done confiscated them already.