Section 36-6-10

Voluntary diminution of salary.

It shall be lawful for any person who is an officeholder in or of the State of Alabama or any county or municipality thereof or holding any civil office of profit under this state or any county or municipality thereof whose compensation, salary or fees is fixed by law for his services and which compensation, salary or fees cannot be or shall not be increased or diminished during the term for which he shall have been elected or appointed under the provisions of Sections 118 or 281 of the Constitution of Alabama or Amendment No. 328 thereof to voluntarily diminish the compensation, salary or fees fixed by law to which he is entitled to such extent as he may desire.

Any person desiring voluntarily to diminish the salary, fees or compensation to which he is entitled and which is fixed by law shall sign and acknowledge an instrument in writing designating the office or position held by him and stating or declaring the amount to which he desires to diminish his salary, fees or compensation. This instrument must be acknowledged by him substantially in the form provided by law for acknowledgment of conveyances, and the acknowledgment may be taken by any officer authorized to take acknowledgment and proof of conveyances in this state. This instrument signed and acknowledged shall, where the person executing and acknowledging the instrument is an officeholder of or in the service of the state, be filed with and recorded by the Department of Finance. This instrument signed and acknowledged shall, where the person executing and acknowledging the instrument is an officeholder of or in the service of a county in the state, be filed with and recorded by the probate judge of the county which he serves. This instrument signed and acknowledged shall, where the person executing and acknowledging the instrument is an officeholder of or in the service of a municipality of the state, be filed with and recorded by the custodian of the records of the municipality.

The Department of Finance, the probate judge of the county and the custodian of the records of a municipality shall respectively provide and preserve a book in their respective offices in which to record such instruments and shall record such instruments in said book, and said book shall be a public record. A certified copy from such book shall have the same force and effect as a certified copy of a conveyance. Neither the Department of Finance nor the probate judge nor the custodian of the records of a municipality shall have the right to charge or collect any compensation for their respective services or for doing what is required to be done by them under the provisions of this section.

From and after the filing of any such instrument with the Department of Finance or with the probate judge or the custodian of the records of a municipality, the compensation or salary or fees of the person executing, acknowledging and signing the instrument shall be reduced in the amount designated in the instrument filed, and, thereafter, warrants or checks or drafts or money given in payment of the compensation, salary or fees to which the person filing the instrument is entitled shall be in the amount of the reduced compensation, salary or fees of such person in accordance with the reduction made by the instrument filed, and the person filing the said instrument shall not be entitled to more compensation, salary or fees than the reduced amount thereof as shown by the terms of the instrument filed for record.

(Acts 1932, Ex. Sess., No. 286, p. 280, §§ 1-4; Code 1940, T. 41, §153.)