The Friend of the Court Bureau is not an independent agency. It operates under the Michigan Supreme Court's State Court Administrative Office. Its director, Steven D. Capps, reports to the SCAO. The Michigan Supreme Court has direct authority over FOC operations statewide. That includes Kalamazoo County, where the 9th Circuit Court relies on the FOC to handle custody, parenting time, and child support for every family in the system.

For five consecutive years, from 2020 through 2024, the Kalamazoo County FOC denied or dismissed every grievance filed by a parent. 100 percent. Zero acknowledged in full. Zero acknowledged in part. Zero corrective actions. Zero policy changes. This is not a local statistic buried in county records. It comes from the annual grievance reports published by Steven D. Capps's own bureau, under the authority of the Michigan Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit Court in Kalamazoo operates at 119 percent of its recommended judicial workload according to the SCAO's own Judicial Resources Recommendations. Families in this district are already stretched thin by an overloaded court. When those families have a problem with how the FOC handles their case, the grievance process is the only remedy available to them. In Kalamazoo, that remedy has produced nothing for half a decade.

The Michigan Supreme Court knows this. The data flows through its own administrative office. Steven D. Capps compiles it. His bureau publishes it. The court has oversight authority. Yet no intervention has occurred.

While Kalamazoo families were receiving 100 percent denial rates, Steven D. Capps was receiving awards and writing blog posts. In 2021, the Michigan Family Support Council gave Capps its Outstanding Achievement Award (https://mifsc.org/awards-program/). In May 2020, while courthouses were closed and FOC staff were sent home, Capps published a post on the Michigan Child Support Pundit blog celebrating a 300,000-visit increase to the MiChildSupport portal and a 28 percent spike in email opt-ins (https://michildsupportpundit.blogspot.com/2020/05/an-awakening-signs-of-life-after-long.html). He called it "An Awakening." Parents flooding a portal because they could not reach anyone in person was framed as progress.

In February 2026, Capps led a training webinar for new FOC staff with two years or less experience (https://legalnews.com/Home/Articles?DataId=1593071). The curriculum included "Customer Service and Practical Tips." In April 2026, one of his bureau's own staff, Gracee G. Wisniewski, a part-time law clerk, denied a father's formal complaint against the Kalamazoo FOC without substantive review.

73 of Michigan's 75 FOC offices, including Kalamazoo, have no Citizen Advisory Committee. There is no independent body reviewing complaints. The FOC investigates itself. The Michigan Supreme Court has the authority to require independent oversight. It has not exercised it.

The 9th Circuit Court district includes every family in Kalamazoo County. Every custody dispute, every parenting time order, every child support case in this district runs through a system whose state-level director has presided over a total failure of the complaint process in this county. The judicial branch of Michigan's government, the branch that is supposed to ensure fairness, has allowed this to continue without public comment or corrective action.

On April 8, 2026, the Kalamazoo Transparency Act submitted a press inquiry to the FOC Bureau. As of publication, no response has been received.

The Kalamazoo Transparency Act press release with full sourced data is available at https://www.kalamazootransparencyact.com/press.