By JIM VERTUNO
AP Sports Writer

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Texas lawmakers voted Friday to dismantle the state’s high school steroids testing program after eight years.

The move came in a budget vote that stripped out all funding for the program over the next two years. It had cost taxpayers more than $10 million since 2007, tested more than 60,000 students and caught just a handful of cheaters.

Once lauded as a model for the nation, the program instead turned into a target for critics who called it ineffective and a waste of money. Several lawmakers defended it Friday as an effective deterrent against steroid use, but said it was no longer needed.

Texas had been scaling down the program for several years. Friday’s vote leaves Illinois and New Jersey as the only states with testing programs.