For the average residential customer, the increase might mean about $1.60 more in natural gas bills per month, Dodd said.

With tuition and other expenses, paying for utilities such as natural gas can be straining for some students.

Although in the winter East Lansing resident and Lansing Community College student Edward Emmerich pays up to $90 per month for natural gas and energy costs in his three-person house, in the summer his bills have decreased to about $30.

“The only time it was unreasonably expensive was between December and (about) March,” Emmerich said. “Since then, it actually went down a lot.”

The company requested a $55 million natural gas price increase last August, about 43 percent more than they were approved.

The rate increase was requested to compensate for an increase in operating and maintenance costs, such as improving natural gas pipelines, Dodd said.

All rate increases must be approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission, said Judy Palnau, a spokeswoman for the commission.
Striking a balance in protecting businesses and consumers means settlement agreements don’t always happen, she said.

“They need to protect rate payers, but they also want a healthy utility to function so we all get the services we rely on,” Palnau said.

Several other companies and associations reached the settlement agreement of $31 million, which included a fund of $500,000 to be set aside for worker training.

“We are doing a lot of training of employees to make sure they are up-to-date on latest techniques on repairs,” Dodd said.

For East Lansing resident and physiology sophomore Jason Unold, a $1.60 increase is manageable, especially split with his five other roommates. Still, additional bills are unwelcome, especially with other expenses, Unold said.

“We’re paying for food and all this other stuff, it’s hard with any price increase,” he said.