Michigan
4 Michigan cities to pay highest heat bills in US — but there’s good news
December was relatively mild, but Michiganders are painfully aware that it’s time to crank up the thermostat — though this year’s forecast comes with a mix of good and bad news for the Mitten State.
On the upside: Your average heating bill is expected to drop by about 21% — or $27 a month — due to projected milder temps in Michigan, a drop in natural gas prices and other factors.
The downside: Folks in Michigan are still expected to pay among the highest heating bills in the country, according to multiple studies, including one that gives our state an unflattering bragging point. Out of the nation’s top 25 most expensive cities to heat a home in the winter, four are in Michigan: Flint, Detroit, Dearborn and Southfield, with Lansing not far away at No. 32. Warren is 33rd and Sterling Heights 34th.
That’s according to a new study by HVAC Gnome, an online referral service for the HVAC industry that ranked heating expenses in America’s 500 largest cities based on multiple criteria, including: gas prices, average monthly electricity and gas bills, periods of extreme cold, the average size of homes, local energy-efficiency metrics, and share of homes built before 2000. The study used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Energy, Green Building Information Gateway, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.
Springfield, Missouri, topped the list as the most expensive city to heat, followed by Cleveland.
Here’s how Michigan cities stacked up:
- Flint, fourth
- Detroit, 10th
- Dearborn, 20th
- Southfield, 22nd
- Lansing, 32nd
- Warren, 33rd
- Sterling Heights, 34th
- Farmington, 66th
- Wyoming, 75th
- Livonia, 85th
- Rochester, 89th
- Grand Rapids, 107th
- Troy, 109th
- Ann Arbor, 142nd
Old houses, long winters
Richie Bernardo, author of the HVAC Gnome study, explained why so many Michigan cities ended up on this expensive-heating-bill list, despite our state having the eighth lowest natural gas prices in the country.
It’s our large inventory of big old houses.
“Despite the affordability of natural gas across Michigan, the state’s older, less energy-efficient homes and longer, colder winters, unfortunately, mean residents have to turn up the thermostat for relatively longer periods of time,” Bernardo said, noting nine of the 15 Michigan cities cited in the study have among the highest percentages of homes built before 2000.
That’s when states began adopting modern residential energy codes.
For cities like Flint, which had the highest percentage of old homes out of all the nation’s big cities, that’s bad news come wintertime. Ten Michigan cities also placed among the top cities with the highest cold wave risk — on top of already colder winters in Michigan.
How Michigan could reduce heating bills
“Naturally, these factors only crank up energy costs over the course of winter,” Bernardo said, noting more investments in energy-efficient homes could help Michiganders.
For example, wintry cities like New York and Boston have invested heavily in green homes, which is partly why they performed better in the study’s ranking, Bernardo explained.
In comparison to Detroit, which is expected to have the 10th highest heating bills this winter, Boston came in at No. 241, New York City at 309 and Chicago at 103.
While Michigan does have modern, residential energy-efficiency codes, the Department of Energy says our state has amended those codes to older versions. That means new builds in Michigan are currently missing out on significant energy savings promised by the latest version of the codes, Bernardo said, noting progress is being made in some areas.
“Some cities like Grand Rapids and Lansing have taken matters into their own hands by building more LEED- and Energy Star-certified homes,” Bernardo said, noting such homes use between 20% and 60% less energy, while Energy Star-certified homes are at least 10% more efficient than homes built to code.
Housing issues aside, the good news is that Michigan, like the rest of the country, is projected to face lower heating bills this winter — around 20% lower — due to projected milder temps and a larger supply of natural gas. Even residents whose homes are heated with electricity will get a nice break on their home heating bills this winter, too, thanks to the warmer weather.
In Michigan, residents can expect to pay $106 a month for natural gas this winter, compared with $133 a month last year.
That’s according to an analysis of data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Personal finance site MoneyGeek analyzed the EIA data to determine which states can expect to see the highest heating bills this winter.
Cheap natural gas helps
Michigan came in at No. 8. Illinois was No. 1, with a projected monthly heating bill of $133.
DTE Energy, Michigan’s largest utility company, confirmed the federal government’s projected decrease in Michigan heating bills, noting that the price of natural gas this January is $3.75 per 1,000 cubic foot, compared with $4.82 per 1,000 cubic foot last January.
Michigan, which has multiple natural gas providers, including Consumers Energy, also has the eighth-cheapest residential natural gas rates in the country, according to a 2023 Choose Energy Natural Gas Rates Report.
Add to that a milder winter, and residents can expect to see some relief in their pocketbooks.
“Obviously, the weather really does affect how much energy people use during the winter months,” said Rosana Laurain, manager of DTE’s gas marketing department, who sought to explain why Michigan has higher heating bills compared with the rest of the country.
One key reason, she said, is the housing stock.
“We have a lot of older, large homes,” Laurain said. “That definitely affects the bills.”
Tips on lowering your heating bill
So how can Michiganders, despite projections for lower heating bills this winter, pay even less?
Here are some key tips from DTE, HVAC Gnome and the federal government:
- Keep your thermostat at 68 during the day. Turn it down 1-2 degrees overnight. Install a programmable thermostat if possible.
- Replace your furnace filter at the start of winter. Clean or change it every three months.
- Seal air leaks around doors, windows, recessed lights and attic hatches. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, you could save up to 30% on energy costs every year by sealing leaks.
- Buy smart power strips. Energy experts say devices continue to draw power even when they appear to be turned off, costing up to $200 a year in wasted energy. You can combat this by regularly unplugging your devices, or letting a smart power strip do the work for you.
Safety tips: Get carbon monoxide detectors
Expenses aside, energy experts also urge customers to use safety measures to protect against gas explosions, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
- DTE recommends that carbon monoxide detectors be installed on each floor of your home, though NOT near any gas appliances or next to the furnace.
- Have annual inspections of your gas appliances.
- NEVER use a stove or oven to heat your house. This is a major fire hazard and can also allow dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide into your home.
- If you smell gas, immediately leave the area, go to an area where you can’t smell it — preferably outside — and call 911.
- Make sure to shut off the water that goes to your spigots to prevent pipes from bursting.
- Bring your pets inside. Don’t keep them outside too long when it’s cold and make sure their paws are protected from salt.
- If you lose heat, go to a warm place, such as local libraries, shopping malls or community centers. There may even be warming centers by you. To find a warming center, go to mi211.org and search “warming centers” with your ZIP code.
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
Detroit — Michigan Democrats rallied their largest group of delegates in the party’s history at a state convention Sunday, even as they attempted to mend divisions that emerged during the Israel-Gaza war.
Delegates to the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement on Sunday elected a slate of largely progressive candidates, picking Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II as their nominee for secretary of state, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit as the nominee for attorney general and unseating University of Michigan incumbent Regent Jordan Acker in favor of Dearborn attorney Amir Makled.
Gilchrist will face off in November against the Republican nominee, Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini, while Savit will compete against the GOP nominee for attorney general, Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, as well as a handful of third-party candidates.
About 7,252 delegates participated in Sunday’s convention at Huntington Place in Detroit, a record for the party, Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Curtis Hertel said.
The state Democratic Party declined Sunday to disclose the vote totals for its nominees at the convention, which is held every four years for party activists to pick nominees for every statewide office except governor and U.S. Senate in lieu of a primary election.
The chosen nominees come as the state approaches massive midterm elections, in which every statewide seat is up for grabs in the November election, as well as the 148 seats in the state House and Senate, where Democrats hope to capture a majority.
In caucus rooms at Huntington Place, Democratic leaders urged unity behind messages of affordable health care, accessible housing, opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive actions and a commitment to sweeping statewide seats in November. There was also recognition, in some meeting rooms on Sunday, of the issues that divided the party in 2024 amid protests of the Biden administration’s support of Israel in the Israel-Gaza war, and the need to fully mend those divisions in advance of the Nov. 3 election.
During the convention program on Sunday, the Israel-Gaza conflict appeared to remain a sensitive issue among some convention-goers. Protesters shouted repeatedly for a point of order, with one holding a sign that said: “Put the Palestine human rights resolution back on the agenda.” And the loudest booing, by far, occurred when U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and Acker, both pro-Israel candidates, were announced on stage in their respective U.S. Senate and Board of Regents races.
Malinda Salameh was among those booing at Huntington Place, in part to protest candidates’ support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The 31-year-old UM alumnus registered too late to be a delegate on Sunday, but attended as a guest and intends to vote in the U.S. Senate primary. Stevens has long been aligned with AIPAC, while her two Democratic primary rivals, physician Abdul El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, have sworn off AIPAC’s campaign cash.
“Unfortunately, they need to understand that we as people cannot stand for this anymore,” Salameh said. “We don’t want any foreign interests messing with our politics. We want money out of politics. And I think that people are sad because they’re not being heard.”
During Acker’s nomination speech, as crowds booed, Wayne County Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch warned that delegates were not learning from the party’s 2024 electoral losses.
“There’s one thing that November 2024 should have taught us, is that the enemy is not in this room,” Kinloch said.
In caucuses, Democrats reckon with a divide
Abbas Alawieh, a cofounder of the Uncommitted National Movement, active in the 2024 election, told delegates, while campaigning for a state Senate seat Sunday morning, that he remained determined to ensure Arab American and Downriver communities are represented within the party.
He told The Detroit News Sunday that the party had done a good job over the past two years in making more room for all members. The record attendance, he said, is proof the Michigan Democratic Party is “trying to be the big tent party and we’ve got to continue growing that.”
“It’s clear that anti-war voters of all stripes, including Arab Americans in Michigan, are going to be critical to our path forward as Democrats,” Alawieh said. “As Democrats, we have to be proactive about reaching out to disaffected voters and voters that we’ve lost to the Republican party.”
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, pushed delegates to ask candidates seeking their vote real questions about actions to combat neighborhood pollution or their stances on federal actions in the Middle East. Pushing for those discussions among candidates will ultimately help improve the party, she said.
“We’re not anti-Democratic Party,” Tlaib said. “We’re trying to make the Democratic Party better.”
El-Sayed, a Muslim Democrat running for U.S. Senate, told members of the party’s Jewish Caucus that he would focus on issues affecting all communities, including allying against “anti-religious bigotry.”
“A lot of folks want us to pay attention to things that we might disagree on happening 6,000 miles away rather than reminding us about the things we agree on happening right here in our state,” El-Sayed said.
Regent candidates debate ‘elephant in the room’
Earlier in the day, the state party’s Jewish Caucus also heard from candidates who expressed a commitment to maintaining a place within the party for Jewish candidates and voters.
Acker, a Jewish Democrat fighting to retain his seat on the University of Michigan Board of Regents, and his fellow incumbent Paul Brown argued Acker had been targeted in his role as regent and in the nomination race. Brown called it the “elephant in the room”
Acker and Brown were running to retain their seats against Makled, a Dearborn attorney who represented several students who faced charges after protests calling on UM to divest from weapons manufacturing and Israel.
Brown argued that Acker had borne the brunt of attacks during the campus unrest and the nomination campaign.
“There’s one difference between Jordan and I,” Brown told members of the Jewish Caucus, “and that is, Jordan is Jewish, and I am not.”
Acker, a personal injury lawyer, said he wouldn’t be cowed by efforts to oust him from the board and credited Jewish Democrats with being significant leaders in civil rights fights over the decades.
“We have a message that we can send today, that we will not be pushed out of this coalition,” Acker said.
Makled, for his part, encouraged members of the Arab American Caucus also to hold their ground within the party.
“We want to make sure this electorate, this convention is giving an image of unity to the Democratic Party, that we’re collectively trying to push the better foot forward, but we’re also not afraid to stand up and speak for our issues as Arab Americans,” Makled said.
The contest between Makled and Acker was particularly heated.
Makled was criticized for reposting, and later deleting, praise for Hezbollah and antisemitic remarks on his social media account, deleted posts.
And The Guardian on Friday reported that Acker appeared to have made obscene sexual comments about a Democratic party strategist and lewd comments about a female U-M student in Slack messages.
When asked Simday about the messages by The News, Acker said the allegations were “ridiculous” and “fake.”
Acker’s attorney, Ethan Holtz, later sent a statement to The News alleging Acker “has never been on Slack” and that the messages contained elements that appeared to be “doctored.”
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
Emergency responders navigate Black Lake looking to rescue flood victims
Officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection were on Black Lake looking for flood victims April 17, 2026.
The Cheboygan River level remained elevated Sunday as forecasters continued to issue fresh warnings about flooding in the region, though measurements at the dam were trending gradually downward.
The river was 7.56 inches below the top of the dam as of 12:45 p.m. Sunday, about a quarter of an inch below the prior measurement taken at 8:30 a.m., according to Michigan State Police. Levels had fluctuated around the seven-inch range below the dam’s top late Friday and Saturday after surging substantially higher earlier in the week.
State officials alerted the public about the emergency at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex on April 10 when the river was 18 inches below the dam’s top. It then fell 2 inches to 20 inches below cresting on Saturday before starting five consecutive days of rising levels, raising concerns over the potential for a major flood disaster downstream in and around the city of Cheboygan.
Scattered snow showers are possible in Cheboygan and other parts of the northern Lower Peninsula on Sunday and into Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service. Much of the remainder of the week is expected to be sunny.
The weather agency on Sunday morning posted a flood warning for Cheboygan and Emmet counties that’s in effect until 8 p.m. Tuesday. “Expect many areas of slow moving or standing water,” it said.
People should stay away from flooded roads to avoid being swept away, the agency said, adding that “river banks and culverts can become unstable and unsafe.”
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office also warned of “significant debris” flowing through local waterways and urged residents to stay away. The sheriff listed on its Facebook page more than a dozen road closures as of Sunday.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development urged residents Sunday to keep animals and farm equipment safe. It said livestock should be moved to higher ground, and utilities for lower-lying farm building should be switched off. Building doors and windows should be left partially open to “equalize pressure and help prevent buildings from shifting.”
The agency also broadly warned about the dangers of floodwater, given that it can contain harmful bacteria, sewage, toxic chemicals and debris. Pets should be kept way, the MDARD said. And all food and utensils should be kept away from it.
Michigan State Police scheduled a meeting at 6 p.m. Sunday to provide the public an update on the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex situation. It will take place at the Cheboygan Opera House, 403 North Huran St., in Cheboygan. Residents can also join remotely via Zoom, with details on the agency’s social media pages.
lramseth@detroitnews.com
Lansing — Jocelyn Benson, the front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said she believes her work in eight years as secretary of state will help convince voters to promote her this fall.
On Sunday, during a convention in Detroit, Democrats will pick a new secretary of state nominee. And on Thursday, Benson’s campaign for governor submitted about 30,000 petition signatures to get her name on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.
Amid those key moments in the 2026 election cycle, Benson, a former law school dean, sat down Thursday afternoon for an interview with The Detroit News about her time as secretary of state.
“I think that’s what people are looking for: A government that saves them time, saves them money and makes their life easier,” Benson contended. “I’ve done that as secretary of state, and I’ll do that as governor.”
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: You just dropped off your signatures this weekend. The Democrats are going to be gathering to nominate a new person for secretary of state. I was just looking over your campaign promises from 2017, do you feel like you hit them?
Benson: I had two goals when I came into office: wait times down and voter turnout up. And we did both, and I’m really proud of that.
When I started, we did a strategic planning session every January, and during our first strategic planning session in 2019, we filled the whiteboard on every wall in the office. And in our most recent one, the final one, we had just sort of one, just one little to-do list item left, which was really gratifying. Because we have not just increased turnout, but we’ve transformed our elections, eliminated gerrymandering, implemented the state’s first-ever citizens redistricting commission, which was no easy task, and then also implemented a number of new election procedures and options, educated voters about them and took Michigan’s elections from being ranked 31st in the country to No. 2.
We also did that while reducing those wait times (in Secretary of State offices), transforming our customer service experience. … Wait times are consistently 20 minutes or less, which was my No. 1 campaign goal.
Q: What were some of the strategies you used to get the wait times down for people?
A: No. 1, we listened to our employees, and No. 2, we collected data about what wasn’t working. You can’t fix what you can’t measure. And No. 3, we actually went around the country and looked at what states that actually had low wait times were doing. There weren’t many, but there were a few. Indiana and Illinois, had some interesting things that they did, and we took best practices that were working in other states and replicated them here.
But that first piece was key, listening to our employees. Early on in the process, we brought everyone in, all the branch office directors. I was expecting a daylong retreat where we would be discussing ideas, and I sat down with the director of branch office services. He had a whole PowerPoint presentation that went through everything we needed to do, from filling 900 vacant positions that were just vacant and not filled, to creating internally this opportunity for people to schedule the visit ahead of time.
We didn’t pay someone else to build that. That was built by our employees.
Q: When you ran in 2018, one of the big things you were talking about was election security. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that: improving election security? And what do you think about more people probably having faith in the results of elections then than they do now?
A: I am really proud of the fact that in this era of misinformation, we were able to protect our elections and ensure they remained secure.
While withstanding this unprecedented scrutiny and an unprecedented level of frivolous lawsuits, sham legislative hearings and falsehoods spread about our elections in the eye of the storm, we not only met the moment, but we built a better election system through it. That’s evidenced by the fact that we now have choices on how to vote in our state, we’ve modernized how you can register to vote and have increased the registration numbers we have.
Q: If one of these current candidates for secretary of state came to you and said, “I believe that the election is secure and everything is fine, but obviously there’s a lot of voters who don’t. How do we improve that?” What would you say to them?
A: Transparency is our friend.
Q: Just continue to open the process up as much as possible?
A: Well, the facts are on our side. The process is secure. So one of the most important things we need to do first is just continue to give people the tools that they need to get their questions answered and work with folks across the aisle, like we worked with Sen. Ed McBroom in 2021 to invite them into the process as well as answer questions that they have, while also, of course, maintaining any necessary confidence or security about the information that we’re providing.
But the through line is just transparency.
Q: What do you say to some of your opponents who will say, “Yeah, you decreased wait times. But what about the campaign finance website?” It’s not functioning, as they would hope it would.
A: Well, it’s certainly better than what we’ve had in the past. I think it’s important to remember that when I first ran for office, one of the things I heard most on the trail was actually, when are you going to get rid of MERTS (the former campaign finance disclosure system)?
Q: But that’s from people who are on the back end of it?
A: Right. Yeah. So I didn’t want to leave office without taking on that behemoth, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a smooth process, but it’s a necessary one if we were actually going to have a more transparent system, which I would argue also is something that the next secretary of state really needs to lean into more: getting money out of politics. I’ll be an ally for that as governor.
But when it comes to MITN and that process, one, what it really underscores is that I’m not afraid to take on big behemoths that others, frankly, past secretaries of state, refused to do, because it was too hard. And it does invite criticism. Whenever you try to transform a massive system that’s broken, yes, there are going to be hiccups along the way.
Q: Do you think voters are interested in that message: “I’ve improved these systems. I’m in government. I’ve succeeded in government. I can make it work.” Or are they looking for someone to just change everything?
A: People see a broken system that needs fixing, and they know I have transformed and fixed a system that every single one of our residents has interacted with. The other day, I was picking up food for my son and husband, and walking out with bags of food, and this gentleman in a pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot and said, “Excuse me, are you the secretary of state?”
I was like, “I am.” And he said, “You know, I’m not political or anything. But I just was driving down this road the other day and realized when I passed the secretary of state’s office that it’s been years since I’ve had to go in there. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make that possible for me.” And I said, “Yeah, now imagine if all of government worked that well.”
Q: Do you think all three of the Democratic candidates running for secretary of state would be a good secretary of state? I know you’re not endorsing.
A: I’m committed to working with whoever comes through the convention and making sure they’re prepared to build on what we’ve done and achieve even more success.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
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