After a quarter-century of being branded by the state as "fiscally distressed," Scranton, Pa., is the closest it's ever been to shedding that label. If its finances remain stable, the city is expected to exit the state’s Act 47 distressed cities program -- which it entered in 1992 -- in the next three years.

What makes the news remarkable is the tailspin that Scranton was in just a few short years ago. When Mayor Bill Courtright took office in 2014, he inherited a city that had balanced its budget for five straight years using onetime revenues and deficit financings. “In early 2014, everyone wrote us off,” says Courtright. “It was like we had a disease.”

But thanks to what observers are calling a new era of political cooperation between the mayor and council, Scranton has made considerable progress. City officials have approved several tax increases aimed at balancing the budget, including a hike in property taxes and garbage fees. Those, combined with a new commuter tax, have injected $16.2 million in new annual revenue into the $90 million general fund.

Courtright credits a team that stubbornly adhered to a financial recovery plan devised with the help of a financial consultant. The mayor, also a former councilmember, says he and the current council have communicated better and worked to move beyond the infighting that dominated public meetings in previous years. “We knew we had to change the image between past mayor and past council,” he says. “We knew we wouldn’t get the financial community to go along with us if we couldn’t cooperate amongst ourselves.”