Not many people understand the sacrifices military families make for our country. Not only do our service men and women put their lives at risk to protect us, but their families are asked to make sacrifices too—including packing up their entire life and moving when a spouse is transferred to another state. And when military families are transferred to Ohio, they should be greeted with a welcome mat, not burdened with bureaucracy and government red tape.

Ohio policymakers took a step in that direction when they voted in the last General Assembly to provide unemployment insurance to military spouses. Now when a military spouse is forced leave a job due to a transfer, they can apply for and receive unemployment benefits. This is a small way in which Ohio is helping our military families.

However good these unemployment benefits are, though, what military spouses really want and need are actual jobs. But instead of putting out the welcome mat, Ohio’s occupational licensing requirements create needless road blocks and red tape for military spouses relocating to Ohio.

The good news is, there is a solution—one that policymakers overwhelming supported in the last General Assembly when they voted to 89-0 to pass House Bill 716 and 31-0 to pass Senate Bill 320. The policies in these bills would have granted full professional licenses to military spouses as long as the requirements for the license they held in another state are similar to, or more stringent than those of Ohio. For military spouses whose out-of-state license was not similar to Ohio standards, they would have been able to obtain a temporary license while they pursued an Ohio license.

Building on The Buckeye Institute’s 2016 proposal, Dr. Andrew Kidd said these changes would move Ohio closer to recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Defense and would be “a positive sign that military spouses stationed here do not need special permission slips from the state to earn a living.”

Unfortunately, the policy was not signed into law, but this General Assembly has an opportunity to do what is right for military families transferred to Ohio and show them how welcoming Ohioans are.

The legislature should pick up this torch and continue to fight for occupational license reciprocity for military spouses. This would mean that a military spouse who worked as a teacher in Texas, whose requirements for certification are largely identical to those of Ohio, would be guaranteed the opportunity to immediately resume earning a living for their family and help educate our children.

The General Assembly should go further than the reforms of the last session and require permanent licenses be given to military spouses—just as they do in 23 other states—instead of just offering temporary licenses. This reform would be a signal that Ohio welcomes military families and wants them to make Ohio their permanent home after their military service is complete.

Without these reforms, Ohio will continue to lag behind the rest of the country and could lose new military jobs which could go to more welcoming states. Not to mention the cold welcome this would extend to military families transferred to Ohio.

Building off the passage of landmark occupational licensing reform, 2019 presents Ohio policymakers an opportunity to enact further reforms, and adopt a policy of comprehensive occupational license reciprocity for military spouses, which would honor both their skills and the sacrifices they make for our country.

Tyler Shankel is an economic policy analyst at The Buckeye Institute.