As part of his 2018 budget address Monday morning, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said he is sending a letter to the Commonwealth seeking the removal of the city from Act 47 financially distressed status and ICA oversight, of which it’s been under since 2004.

In his message to Gov. Tom Wolf and the Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin, Peduto laid out his plans to cement the fiscal reforms learned through the Act 47 process to protect the city from entering the distressed status again.

With talks of Pittsburgh leaving Act 47 status by the beginning of 2018 and with a zeroing out of the city’s financial oversight authority’s line item in this year’s state budget, lawmakers and Pittsburgh officials are agreeing that there is no longer a need for the Pittsburgh Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority to continue past the end of the year.

“The ICA did its job in helping Pittsburgh get its finances in order and making sure its budget priorities are in the right place,” said House Republican caucus spokesman Steve Miskin. “Now things are happening with a continued positive trend and there’s a feeling that the ICA has run its course and no more funding needs to be expended.”

The Act 47 coordinators of the city of Pittsburgh have concluded that it is time for the city to get out of the “financially distressed” status that it has held since 2003, and could do so by the beginning of the year.

Joel Lennen of the law firm Eckert Seamans, whom make up the team of the city’s Act 47 coordinators,