Cylvia Hayes, the former Oregon first lady, has agreed to pay $44,000 for a litany of ethics violations arising from her use of public office for personal profit.

The transgressions are related to Hayes’ securing work as a paid consultant by playing off her role as unpaid advisor to Gov. John Kitzhaber, her longtime fiancé. The resulting influence peddling scandal enveloped the couple for years and ultimately led to Kitzhaber’s resignation and Hayes’ financial ruin.

Private groups paid Hayes more than $200,000 to lobby for eco-friendly policies, work investigators later concluded she obtained because of her access to the governor and his aides in violation of state law. Hayes also ran afoul of laws regulating acceptance of gifts and conflicts of interest, investigators found.

The settlement, signed Jan. 18 by Hayes and made public Tuesday by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, states Hayes will not contest that she broke ethics laws 22 times. But it allows Hayes to maintain that she did not knowingly break the law and she avoids the maximum penalty of $110,000.

The full Ethics Commission will vote Thursday on whether to accept the settlement.

Richard Burke, the commission’s chairman, acknowledged Hayes could have faced steeper fines, but added, “Our mission is to educate, not to punish.” He said commissioners judge what to fine an official on a case-by-case basis but described the maximum penalties as “overkill” akin to squashing a fly with a cruise missile.

“What I’m concerned about is less what the number is,” Burke said, “and more that it’s established that ethics laws matter and that there are consequences to breaking them.”

Whitney Boise, Hayes’ civil lawyer, declined to comment.

Though Hayes has agreed to the settlement, the nine-member Ethics Commission has not. Its approval is not a given.

Kitzhaber separately negotiated to settle 10 ethics violations with the state last year, though the Ethics Commission rejected an initial settlement and its $1,000 fine in favor of a $20,000 penalty.

It’s unclear Hayes has the means to pay the $44,000 fine she has agreed to. She filed for bankruptcy last year and disclosed debts exceeding $339,000.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com

Jeff Manning of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.