Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos Sept. 3 told the school board to expect $2 million or less from the city in 2010.

The city gave Hoover City Schools $2 million this year. Last year, the city gave the school system $7.5 million.

“I told them that the amount would be no more than $2 million, and we’re still developing the budget, so it could be less than that,” Petelos said.

He said he wanted to go ahead and let the board know where the city stood so the schools could begin to form a plan for the coming year.

Petelos said he plans to begin working on a city budget for fiscal year 2010 in the next two weeks and would like to submit it to the city council in October. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

The new fiscal year will bring changes for the city, which is implementing a salary freeze from Oct. 1, 2009-Sept. 31, 2010. Also, employees with a family insurance plan will begin paying $100 more per month.

Petelos said the city is examining operations costs and searching for grants to bring in money.

“The employees have been great. They have offered ideas, they have submitted ideas,” he said. “We’re going to review anything the employees submit to us to see if we can implement it.”