Steven D. Capps is the Director of the Friend of the Court Bureau at the Michigan Supreme Court's State Court Administrative Office. He is the highest-ranking official in the state responsible for FOC operations. His bureau publishes the annual grievance reports for all 75 FOC offices in Michigan. His bureau trains new FOC employees. His bureau handles complaints that parents escalate beyond the county level.
From 2020 through 2024, the Kalamazoo County Friend of the Court denied or dismissed every single grievance filed by a parent. The denial rate was 100 percent. Zero complaints were acknowledged in full. Zero were acknowledged in part. Zero corrective actions were taken. Zero policies were changed. Not one employee was disciplined. This data was compiled and published annually by the bureau Steven D. Capps directs.
In 2022, Kalamazoo's FOC classified 83 percent of grievances as "nongrievable," meaning the office decided the complaints did not even qualify for review. The statewide average that year was 23 percent. Kalamazoo was rejecting complaints at 3.6 times the rate of every other county in Michigan.
During this same period, Steven D. Capps was winning awards and writing blog posts.
In 2021, the Michigan Family Support Council gave Steven D. Capps its Outstanding Achievement Award (https://mifsc.org/awards-program/). That same year, Kalamazoo parents filing grievances received the same outcome they had received the year before and would receive every year after: nothing. The award was given by MIFSC, the professional association for the people who run the system families are complaining about.
In May 2020, with Michigan courthouses closed and FOC staff sent home, Capps published a blog post on the Michigan Child Support Pundit titled "An Awakening: Signs of Life after a Long Winter" (https://michildsupportpundit.blogspot.com/2020/05/an-awakening-signs-of-life-after-long.html). In it, he celebrated a 300,000-visit increase to the MiChildSupport portal, a 28 percent spike in email notification opt-ins, and growing "two-way communication" numbers. He wrote: "Here's to spring; here's to growth. Here's to Michigan's child support professionals."
Those 300,000 additional portal visits were not a sign of growth. They were parents flooding a website because every other door was closed. They could not get hearings. They could not walk into an office. They could not get a human on the phone. Capps framed their desperation as a success metric.
In December 2019, Capps authored another post titled "Providing Dignity and Support to Michigan Families." The grievance data his bureau published for Kalamazoo County during that same period tells a different story about what dignity looked like for those families.
In February 2026, Capps was listed as the lead presenter for a "New Friend of the Court Employees Webinar" (https://legalnews.com/Home/Articles?DataId=1593071) targeting FOC staff with two years or less experience. The curriculum included "Customer Service and Practical Tips." One of his bureau's own staff members, Gracee G. Wisniewski, a part-time law clerk, denied a father's formal complaint against the Kalamazoo FOC without substantive review in April 2026. Wisniewski fits the profile of the newer staff Capps trains. The outcome of her handling fits the five-year pattern in the data Capps publishes.
73 of Michigan's 75 FOC offices have no Citizen Advisory Committee providing independent oversight. The FOC investigates complaints filed against itself. Capps's bureau publishes this statistic every year.
On April 8, 2026, the Kalamazoo Transparency Act submitted a formal press inquiry to the FOC Bureau requesting comment. As of publication, Steven D. Capps's office has not responded.
The Kalamazoo Transparency Act has published a full press release with sourced data at https://www.kalamazootransparencyact.com/press.