Fathers, This Is the Man Holding You Back: Steven D. Capps and the System That Denies Every Complaint You File

If you are a father in Kalamazoo County and you have ever filed a grievance against the Friend of the Court, you already know how it ends. It gets denied. Every time. You are not imagining it. The data proves it.

From 2020 through 2024, the Kalamazoo County FOC denied or dismissed every single grievance filed by a parent. 100 percent. Five straight years. Zero complaints acknowledged. Zero corrective actions taken. Zero policies changed. Not one person in that office was ever held accountable for how they handled your case.

The man who runs this system statewide is Steven D. Capps. He is the Director of the Friend of the Court Bureau at the Michigan Supreme Court's State Court Administrative Office. Every FOC office in the state, including Kalamazoo, operates under his bureau. His office publishes the grievance data every year. He sees the numbers. He knows.

In 2022, the Kalamazoo FOC classified 83 percent of grievances as "nongrievable." That means they looked at your complaint and decided it did not even qualify for a review. They did not examine the facts. They did not investigate. They just threw it out. The statewide average was 23 percent. Kalamazoo rejected fathers' complaints at 3.6 times the rate of every other county.

While you were fighting for time with your kids, Steven D. Capps was winning awards. In 2021, the Michigan Family Support Council gave him the Outstanding Achievement Award (https://mifsc.org/awards-program/). The same year your grievance was denied. The award came from MIFSC, the professional association for the people running the system you are complaining about. They gave themselves a trophy.

While you were locked out of courthouses during COVID, unable to get a hearing or reach a caseworker, Steven D. Capps was writing a blog post celebrating 300,000 additional portal visits (https://michildsupportpundit.blogspot.com/2020/05/an-awakening-signs-of-life-after-long.html). He called it "An Awakening." He wrote: "Here's to spring; here's to growth. Here's to Michigan's child support professionals." Your desperation was his metric. Your inability to reach anyone was his success story.

In February 2026, Capps led a training webinar for new FOC staff with less than two years of experience (https://legalnews.com/Home/Articles?DataId=1593071). He taught them "Customer Service and Practical Tips." Then in April 2026, one of his own bureau staff, Gracee G. Wisniewski, a 21-year-old part-time law clerk, denied a father's formal complaint without substantive review. That is the customer service Steven D. Capps trained.

There is no independent oversight of the Kalamazoo FOC. No Citizen Advisory Committee. No outside body reviewing what happens to your complaint. 73 of 75 counties in Michigan are in the same position. The FOC investigates complaints against itself. Steven D. Capps's bureau publishes that statistic every year and does nothing about it.

92.6 percent of non-custodial parents in Michigan's child support system are male. This system was built on the backs of fathers. The grievance process was supposed to be your safeguard. In Kalamazoo, it has been a dead end for five years, and the man in charge has been blogging and collecting awards the entire time.

Now you know his name. Steven D. Capps. Director, Friend of the Court Bureau, State Court Administrative Office, Michigan Supreme Court.

The Kalamazoo Transparency Act asked his office for comment on April 8, 2026. He has not responded.

Full sourced data and press release at https://www.kalamazootransparencyact.com/press.