Government work groups and task forces don’t always come up with effective solutions (ask the Ohio Redistricting Commission), but the Ohio Missing Persons Working Group appears to have come up with some solid ideas to improve missing persons investigations.

According to a report by the Dayton Daily News, Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson announced 18 areas of improvement in matters such as communication between law enforcement and family members, sharing of information among law enforcement agencies, training and education.

It’s hard to believe some of the recommendations weren’t already in place, such as automating notification of law enforcement agencies of Endangered Missing Child Alerts or continued professional training for the healthcare industry on law enforcement exemptions to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

“Thousands of children and adults are reported missing each year, and although most are located quickly, some simply vanish, leaving anguished families behind and adding to law enforcement’s growing caseload,” DeWine said, according to the Daily News. “The goal of this working group was to identify what more we could do as a state to help law enforcement bring more missing people home and support family members during a time of great despair.”

But the recommendations are out of the working group’s hands now. It’s lawmakers’ turn with them.

Let’s hope the recommendations do not get pushed to the back burner. In cases such as the ones DeWine and the working group were trying to address, speed is of the essence.