By CHRISTINE BOATWRIGHT / Staff Writer

HOOVER – The Hoover City Council renewed its mutual aid agreement with Shelby County law enforcement during an Oct. 15 Council meeting.

The agreement is between the city and the University of Montevallo, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, Alabaster, Calera, Columbiana, Helena, Harpersville, Montevallo and Pelham.

Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said the city does not have the same agreement with Jefferson County. During the three-year contract, Hoover would respond to any “immediate threats” to the entities involved in the agreement.

“We respond to Shelby County for bomb situations, as the departments don’t have bomb squads,” Derzis told the Council. “It’s the same agreement as in the past.”

During the meeting, Hoover Finance Director Robert Yeager presented the proposed 2012-2013 fiscal budget.

Yeager said the budget is “very similar” to the 2012 budget, although expenditures are budgeted as $2.7 million higher than 2012.

The proposed budget includes increased operating expenses for Regions Park, Yeager said.

Council member John Greene asked Yeager if the budget includes “left over” money from the previous year.

Yeager said the city has $10 million to move to capital fund projects.

Merit raises are included in the budget, but no cost-of-living adjustments, which city employees have not had since 2007, Yeager said.

“What percentage of employees are getting (merit) raises?” Council member Rear Adm. John Natter said.

“Most people will get something, probably 10 percent or less will get nothing,” Yeager said, noting employees at the top of the pay scale have “no more room” to have step raises.

During the meeting, the Hoover City Council also:

-Awarded two bids to K&M Landscape to perform landscape maintenance for the Hoover Public Safety Center and Interstate 65 at U.S. 31.

-Approved two Alabama Department of Transportation resolutions for planing, widening, resurfacing, loop detectors, permanent traffic stripe and guardrail end anchors along U.S.31 from the Shelby-Jefferson County line to Interstate 459, as well as Alabama 119 from U.S. 280 east to the Shelby-Jefferson County line.