Oak Harbor School District leaders seem to be having trouble facing the reality of inflation. Every time they estimate the cost of the high school remodel project, they have to come back a few months later and make more cuts.

The most recent example was Thursday when the School Board dealt with the commons building cost estimate which came in much higher than had been projected only three months before. That left a $2.3 million gap to be filled by cuts, transfers, shifts, or some other budgetary maneuver. The same thing happened with the construction of Wildcat Memorial Stadium. Original plans were always being cut back when new cost estimates came in.

The School Board could suffer through fewer meetings and the embarrassment of continually paring building plans simply by insisting that inflation be faced realistically. The big high school remodel job doesn’t go out to bid until next year. As things now stand, it doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that the bids will be higher than expected and more cuts will have to be made.

Instead, the board should adopt a worst-case inflation scenario, and then add another 5 percent on top of that. Inflation has run amuck in the construction business the last few years and shows no signs of abating. Bare-bone the building plans now, let the remodel bids come in at or below expectations, and then bask in the resulting public gratitude.