If you’re considering a no vote on any of several money measures on Central Oregon ballots this month because you’re upset over problems with the state’s Public Employees Retirement System, don’t. You’re aiming at the wrong target.

In fact, taking anger at PERS spending out on local money measures is about as logical as refusing to pay your doctor’s bill because the hospital administrator earns too much. Failure to do the first will have no influence on the second.

We agree that PERS is in need of change. Its contributors — school districts, cities and other government agencies, including Deschutes County’s 911 district — must replace money lost in the last recession to the tune of $14 billion. But those changes lie in the hands of legislators, not in those of local taxing districts.

Lawmakers in Salem have made minor adjustments this year, to be sure, though Democrats have kept them relatively small. They did agree to cap automatic cost-of-living increases, but by less than half of what Gov. John Kitzhaber wanted. And, they agreed to end the practice of paying out-of-state retirees a bonus designed to cover Oregon income taxes those retirees no longer pay.

But as they made those good but small changes, they made another one that is no good at all. They simply said that money local governments and the state should pay to PERS next year won’t be paid, at least not now. That may save money in the short run but will cost the system over time.

No one in charge of local spending — no city council, no school board, no park district or 911 board — can change what it must spend on PERS, unfortunately. That is a matter of state law, not local control.

All of that argues for keeping PERS out of your decision-making equation as you prepare to vote, whether it is on the levies for the Madras pool, Deschutes County 911 and the La Pine Rural Fire Protection District, or the school bonds in Crook County, Culver and Bend-La Pine.

Instead, weigh those requests on their merits: Will the money these agencies seek make our communities better? That, not PERS, is the question that should count.