This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Every day in Los Angeles County, thousands of older adults rely on a simple but essential service: a meal.
For some, it’s delivered to their door. For others, it’s shared at a local senior center. No matter how it’s served, for many the meal services signify stability, connection and the ability to remain safely at home.
Now a proposed change in how California distributes funding for these services could reduce access to them for the communities that rely on them most.
The state, through the California Department of Aging, is updating its intrastate funding formula, which determines how money is shared across various local agencies. The goal is to make sure the funding matches the level of need and it’s done equitably across regions.
But there are real reasons for concern. The proposal prioritizes a formulaic balance over the operational reality on the ground.
Not all aging service regions are interchangeable. Not all systems operate at the same scale. And not all communities face the same level of demand.
Los Angeles County, for example, serves roughly a quarter of California’s older adults, including one of the state’s largest populations of low-income older adults and older adults with complex needs.
In a system this large, even modest funding changes can have significant consequences. The projected impact of a proposed 17% cut in Los Angeles County could mean nearly 186,000 fewer meals served at community sites and over 157,000 fewer home-delivered meals annually.
All that equates to about 1,300 fewer meals per day. These older adults may lose access to food, human connection and services that help them remain healthy and independent.
So how does a formula designed to improve equity produce this kind of outcome? The issue isn’t the data but how the data is weighted.
The proposed formula considers age, income, disability and geography and gives those factors roughly equal weight, even though they don’t all drive service demand the same way.
Equal weighting may look fair on paper, but it fails to reflect how need manifests in real communities.
Low-income older adults, for instance, are far more likely to rely on publicly funded nutrition and supportive services. High-density urban regions like Los Angeles serve significantly more people and operate at a different scale than smaller systems.
The data also shows that population growth isn’t occurring evenly across the state — L.A. County added more than 92,000 older adults in a single year — but the proposed formula doesn’t proportionally reflect that increase.
When those realities aren’t reflected in the formula, funding can shift away from communities with the highest levels of need. This isn’t just about Los Angeles County; other large, high-demand regions could face similar challenges.
The state is right to update the formula. But before finalizing it, the state should test alternative scenarios and ensure the model reflects real-world demand without creating unintended consequences.
This request is not about delaying progress. This isn’t an argument against change; it’s an argument for getting it right.
California has made strong commitments to helping older adults age with dignity and independence. That commitment depends on funding systems that work in practice, not just on paper.
