The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to support Assembly Bill 117, the first step in returning approximately $4 million to the cities of Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Cupertino and Los Altos Hills. There is still a major hurdle standing between the cities and the windfall, though--the California Legislature.

If the state approves the bill, the county would give back Tax Equity Allocation, or TEA, funds to Cupertino and the other cities, and that would represent a significant return to the municipalities that have been so strapped for cash in recent years.

Still, that approval requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature before it can advance to the governor for his signature. And officials in Cupertino and the other affected communities are just holding their collective breath in the meantime.

The vote of support by the county supervisors is a major step in the right direction, since the cities have been unsuccessful through the years in their bid to renegotiate a pact made nearly 20 years ago with county officials that allocated a portion of city property taxes to pay for trial court funding.

The return could represent as much as $1.2­1.5 million for Saratoga, a large percentage of its annual property tax revenue.

The county was motivated to rectify the inequity by its interest in seeing the cities move ahead with plans to annex county pockets within their borders. Whatever the reason, it's a benefit for the individual cities.

Now local city leaders face the painstaking task of guiding the bill through the process at the state level--through committees to the Assembly and to the Senate.

Residents in Cupertino should encourage their representatives in Sacramento to support AB 117 and return their local money to the place where it belongs--their city's bank account.