Village council has big plans underway for the next five years. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

open house

Small surplus for 2026 Air Ronge budget

Nov 28, 2025 | 5:19 PM

The Village of Air Ronge unveiled its 2026 operating budget and five-year capital plan at an open house on Friday.

The budget shows revenues of $3,093,000 with expenditures of $3,154,000, and with various transfers taken into consideration, there’s a projected surplus of about $66,500. At the end of 2024, the village had $4,483,000 in its reserves.

While there will be no increase to the mill rate, the base tax for residential and businesses will both go up by $120 per property.

“The cost of everything is going up. We have to do some tax increase to meet those expenditures,” said Deputy Mayor Terry DesRoches.

Water and sewer rates will also continue to rise as the village seeks to move towards a user pay system instead of subsidizing the service through collected taxes. The increase for January 2026 is approximately $10 per month per single family household.

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The 2026 budget calls for drainage improvements ($400,000), the replacement of six fire hydrants ($50,000), the purchasing of a new fleet vehicle ($75,000), upgrades and plans for pathway improvements ($30,000), as well as planning for parks, playgrounds, the public works shop and improvements for the village office.

The village still has $70,000 earmarked for cameras to be strategically placed throughout the community, but there has been no movement on that idea since it was first proposed in 2022.

Some of the capital projects will be completed from grant funding, while others will come from reserves.

“Our budget is pretty straight forward about what we plan to do and how we plan to do it,” DesRoches said.

“We have more staff in the office now, so we can start making moves for what we want to do.”

As per the Five-Year Capital Plan, council is planning for a new $800,000 shop in 2030, a $200,000 sander truck in 2028, $650,000 paving projects, $562,500 for their portion of a lagoon expansion, $405,000 for water meters, $320,000 for walking path improvements, and $200,000 in village office improvements all in 2027.

More information about the 2026 budget and Five-Year Capital Plan can be found online here.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com