FOC Bureau Director Steven D. Capps Published Blog Posts Celebrating Portal Traffic While His Bureau's Grievance System Denied 100% of Kalamazoo Parent Complaints for Five Straight Years

From 2020 to 2024, zero grievances acknowledged. Zero corrective actions. Zero policy changes. During that same period, the director wrote about email opt-ins and website visits.

KALAMAZOO, Mich., April 9, 2026 Between 2020 and 2024, the Kalamazoo County Friend of the Court denied or dismissed every grievance filed by a parent. 100 percent. Zero complaints were acknowledged in full. Zero were acknowledged in part. Zero corrective actions were taken. Zero policies were changed. Zero employees were disciplined. This data comes from the annual grievance reports published by the FOC Bureau of the Michigan Supreme Court's State Court Administrative Office (SCAO).

The director of that bureau is Steven D. Capps.

In 2022, the Kalamazoo FOC classified 83 percent of grievances as nongrievable, meaning the office decided complaints did not even qualify for review. The statewide average that year was 23 percent. Kalamazoo rejected complaints at 3.6 times the state rate. In 2023, all six grievances filed ended in no action. These numbers were compiled and published by Steven D. Capps's bureau.

While this data accumulated year after year, Steven D. Capps was writing for the Michigan Child Support Pundit (https://michildsupportpundit.blogspot.com), a blog operated by the FOC Bureau. In a May 2020 post titled 'An Awakening: Signs of Life after a Long Winter,' Capps 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.'

At the time of that post, Michigan courthouses were closed. FOC staff had been sent home. Parents could not get hearings, could not access in-person services, and had no functioning mechanism to resolve disputes or enforce parenting time. The 300,000 additional portal visits Capps celebrated were parents trying to reach a system that had shut its doors.

In a December 2019 post titled 'Providing Dignity and Support to Michigan Families,' Capps wrote about the importance of the FOC's role in serving families. The grievance data his bureau published for that same period tells a different story. In Kalamazoo County, the families Capps wrote about providing dignity to had no successful path to file a complaint against the office serving them.

73 of Michigan's 75 FOC offices, including Kalamazoo, have no Citizen Advisory Committee providing independent oversight. The FOC investigates complaints filed against itself. Steven D. Capps's bureau publishes this statistic annually.

In April 2026, a father filed a formal complaint with Steven D. Capps's bureau against the Kalamazoo County FOC. The complaint was handled by Gracee G. Wisniewski, a part-time law clerk. It was denied without substantive review, consistent with the five-year pattern in the bureau's own data.

On April 8, 2026, the Kalamazoo Transparency Act submitted a press inquiry to FOCBInfo@courts.mi.gov requesting comment from Steven D. Capps or his office. As of publication, the bureau has not responded.

“Steven D. Capps publishes the grievance data. He publishes the oversight data. He writes blog posts about growth and dignity. The data from his own bureau shows that Kalamazoo parents have had neither for five years.,” stated Kalamazoo Transparency Act.