The Utah County Commission approved a resolution Wednesday to allow inmates at the Utah County Jail the opportunity to earn their food handlers permit.

The program, which County Commissioner Skyler Beltran called a “no-brainer,” is intended to provide a cleaner jail kitchen while equipping people with a skill that will reduce barriers to finding employment post-incarceration.

“Having that ability to come out with it (the food handler’s permit) already done makes it that much easier to find a job and be a lower barrier of entry into the business,” Beltran said. “It supports our local businesses as well because everybody needs restaurant workers, cashiers, fast food workers. Now we’re having these people leave ready to go. They could start the next day.”

Inmates prepare and package thousands of meals monthly for Meals on Wheels inside the jail kitchen and help jail cooks serve food to inmates and deputies each day.

Beltran, who joined the commission at the end of last year, said when he toured the jail he saw the kitchen program and inquired if a food handlers permit program had been established.

“And they said, ‘No, we’ve come up with too many hurdles in the past. We’ve looked into it,'” Beltran said. “And I said, ‘No, we need to be able to do that.’ And so it took a couple months and several meetings … and we finally were able to build the program.”

Making it happen required coordination with the state health department and the jail staff. The health department provided recourses to help deputies become certified instructors and build an approved course curriculum.

The course costs $15 per inmate, and two or three people are expected to graduate from the program in the next few weeks.

The 75-minute training course teaches about the top five foodborne illnesses and how to handle food properly, Beltran said. Inmates are provided opportunities to study for the test on a tablet. A final test requires a 75% score to pass.

The program falls in line with the county’s goals of preparing inmates to reenter the world and not return to jail, according to Beltran.

“Nothing cost us more than incarceration,” he said. “So the recidivism aspect is number one in the forefront, for sure.”