Chad Glover addressed the City Council and Finance Advisory Committee at a Nov. 17 special joint meeting and asked the city to continue supporting local entrepreneurship programming. Glover said he was representing Opportunity to Cal and Breakthrough Business and described the Breakthrough Community Business Academy as a 12-week cohort followed by two years of business assistance services.

"The investment the city has made ... has been catalytic and has really allowed us to move the ball forward," Glover told the council. Council members discussed options for funding the program within the FY2026 budget and debated whether city support should be restricted to DeKalb residents or shared regionally with other municipalities.

City Manager flagged a $20,000 line in the community development/developmental services budget as an appropriate source for an initial contribution and noted an existing emergency assistance fund that currently has $50,000 available. After discussion, the chair summarized council direction: staff should include $20,000 for Breakthrough Business in the draft FY2026 budget and retain the $50,000 emergency assistance fund for on-demand emergencies in 2026; any uses of the emergency fund will be brought to council for approval and staff was asked to consider guardrails to prioritize DeKalb residents.

Council members who raised concerns about equity and intermunicipal responsibility suggested convening other municipalities to review how much each contributes to countywide social-service providers. Alderman Smith framed the point as a fairness question: that DeKalb appears to be shouldering a disproportionate share of support for agencies with countywide clientele. The council did not adopt any limiting ordinance at the meeting but directed staff to reflect the $20,000 allocation in budget materials and to bring future payouts from the emergency fund back to council for consideration.

Next steps: staff will add the $20,000 line to budget spreadsheets and draft associated narrative edits before the Monday public budget hearing; any proposed disbursements from the emergency assistance fund will be reported to council for separate consideration.