Ohio lawmakers have until the end of June to pass a budget. But already, members of the House of Representatives have adopted a version that ignores initiatives proposed by other lawmakers and Gov. Mike DeWine to help address the child care challenges faced by many Buckeye State families.

Failure to act on this front will perpetuate a vicious cycle that is hurting families and employers, according to a recent report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Groundwork Ohio, “Untapped Potential in Ohio.” In fact, it is costing approximately $5.48 billion per year in potential taxes and employer earnings.

“You add all of that up, and it just shows that not properly addressing the scarcities and the costs involved with child care in this state is a really big and expensive problem,” Rick Carfagna, senior vice president for government affairs at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, told WCMH.

Ohio has the lowest number of families in the country whose income levels qualify for publicly funded child care, Carfagna said.

“We have an entire demographic of Ohioans right now that are educated,” Carfagna told the news station. “They’re skilled. They’re hard-working. They’re everything you would want in a reliable employee, and they’re not even looking for work because they’ve done the math. They’ve calculated that bringing in an additional paycheck into their household that goes right back out the door to pay for child care doesn’t make economic sense for their family.”

DeWine proposed measures such as increasing the maximum income for families to qualify, giving a child tax credit or even using a tax increase on cigarettes to pay for the credit. Those ideas have so far fallen by the wayside.

Perhaps lawmakers are content with knowing others have a problem, too.

“Some states have it much worse than us,” Carfagna told WCMH.

But is that really good enough? We’ve got a terrible problem, but we’re not going to address it because there are others whose problem is even worse?

We keep saying we want large employers (with real plans) to build in Ohio — within commuting distance for most families.

But employers who care about their workers won’t be interested in moving to a state where child care is less than an afterthought.

We keep saying we want to bring jobs and get everyone to work.

But what incentive do parents and guardians have to get to work if they don’t know lawmakers are on the job, too — for us?