Erik Sanzenbach
St. Tammany News

Thanks to a new ordinance unanimously passed by the Slidell city council Tuesday, the dependents of city employees who die while working for the city will be able to receive health insurance benefits for five years after the employee’s death.

Councilman Ray Canada explained after Slidell police officer Capt. Rob Callahan died three years ago, his dependents were not eligible for health insurance benefits. So the council agreed to an ordinance giving dependents five years of health insurance coverage after the death. Canada explained the dependents would still have to pay their share of the premiums, with the city picking up 75 percent of the cost.

“Five years is enough time to find another insurance company,” Canada said.

Another bill passed unanimously by the council imposes penalties on prisoners in the Slidell City Jail who do not return after given conditional releases such as visits to the doctor, or to alleviate overcrowding at the jail.

Slidell Police Department Capt. Tim Foltz said this is not a big problem.

“There have been a couple of times when a prisoner has not returned from a doctor’s visit,” Foltz said. He said the new ordinance would put the penalty for simple escape on the city law books. “Currently, we charge them with a state charge of simple escape, and now it is a city charge,” he explained.

The penalty for simple escape is extra jail time of between six months and a year added to the original sentence. Simple escape penalties cannot be served concurrently with the original sentence, Foltz said.

City attorney Tim Matheson told the council Tuesday the ordinance was not meant to stop a big problem, but to avoid any problems in the future.