(a) Each authority shall be governed by a board. All powers of the authority shall be exercised by or under the authority of, and the business and affairs of the authority shall be managed under the direction of, the board or pursuant to its authorization. In making appointments to the board, best efforts should be used to reflect the racial, gender, and economic diversity within the county.
(b) The board shall consist of nine directors. One director shall be elected by the governing body of the authorizing county. Five of the directors shall be elected by the governing body of the principal municipality. One of the directors shall be elected by the governing bodies of each of the three participating municipalities having the largest population according to the last or any subsequent federal decennial census. If there are not three participating municipalities, the governing body of the authorizing county and the governing body of the principal municipality shall jointly elect a director that would otherwise be elected by the participating municipality. The term of office of each person who is a director on May 24, 2013, shall not be changed by this chapter.
(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (b), the terms of this subsection shall apply after January 1, 2014. Every appointment of a director for a new term shall be for a four-year term, and no one person shall serve more than two consecutive four-year terms unless such person is a director of the authority on May 24, 2013. The principal municipality may vary the term of office of any director it appoints as to cause its appointments to be evenly spaced over any four-year period. The participating municipalities and the authorizing county shall, following consultations with each other, exercise a similar power.
(d) Whenever there is a vacancy on the board, a successor director to serve for the unexpired term applicable to the vacancy shall be elected by the public entity that elected the director whose unexpired term the successor is to fill. A municipality may not have any continuing or vested right to elect a director and the power of the governing body of any municipality to elect or to participate in the election of a director, whether for a full term or to complete an unexpired term, shall be determined in accordance with the most recent federal decennial census.
(e) An officer of the state or of any county or municipality may not, during his or her tenure as an officer, be eligible to serve as a director. Each director shall be a duly qualified elector of the authorizing county. Each director shall be reimbursed for expenses actually incurred by him or her in and about the performance of his or her duties. Each director, except the chair of the board, shall be compensated in an additional amount not to exceed ten dollars ($10) per meeting attended but not to exceed two hundred fifty dollars ($250) per year; the chair shall be compensated in an additional amount not to exceed five hundred dollars ($500) per year; and the term "meeting" shall have the meaning given in Section 36-25A-2. A director may be impeached and removed from office in the same manner and on the same grounds provided by Section 175 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended, and the general laws of the state for impeachment and removal of the officers mentioned in Section 175.
(f) The dollar amounts specified in subsection (e) shall be adjusted according to the increase in the Consumer Price Index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor for all Urban Consumers, US City Average, All Items, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Base Period 1982-84=100 (the "Index"). Adjustments shall occur at the start of each fiscal year of the authority, and shall be determined by dividing the most recent information available for the Index at the start of each fiscal year, by the most recent information available for the Index upon May 24, 2013, and multiplying the resultant amount by the subject number in subsection (e). Any increase or decrease shall be rounded to the nearest whole dollar.
Last modified: May 3, 2021