(1) In compliance with s. 5(c), Art. II of the State Constitution, it is the intent of the Legislature to provide for the annual compensation and method of payment for the several county officers named herein.
(2) The Legislature has determined that a uniform and not arbitrary and discriminatory salary law is needed to replace the haphazard, preferential, inequitable, and probably unconstitutional local law method of paying elected county officers.
(3) It is further the intent of this Legislature to provide by general law for such uniform compensation of county officials having substantially equal duties and responsibilities, taking into account the multitude of changes that have affected these offices within the past decade.
(4) The salary schedules in this chapter are therefore based on a classification of counties according to each county’s population, which the Legislature determines to be the most practical basis from which to arrive at an adequate, uniform salary system.
