There are political missteps, and then there are moments that define whether a candidate can be trusted with public money. For Simon Hare, that moment has arrived, and it carries a price tag of $25,000.
This week, the Josephine County Board of Commissioners made it official. The county is now moving to recover taxpayer funds paid to Hare under a 2025 contract for budget officer services, work that officials say was never completed. It is a blunt, on-the-record acknowledgment that what was promised did not materialize and that public money was spent without a finished product to show for it.
That fact alone would be enough to raise concern. But in this case, it lands in the middle of something larger. Hare is not a former employee quietly exiting government. He is actively running for Josephine County Treasurer, the very office responsible for safeguarding and managing public funds.
And that is where the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.
The contract in question was straightforward on paper. Hare was brought in as Budget Officer for the 2025–2026 fiscal cycle and awarded a one-time payment of $25,000 that was issued almost immediately after the agreement was signed. There were no meaningful performance benchmarks written into the contract. No defined deliverables. No measurable checkpoints. Just a payment, made in full, with the expectation that the work would follow.
According to statements made during a recent public meeting, it did not.
County officials confirmed that Hare resigned before completing the budget work. They confirmed that the work itself was left substantially unfinished. They confirmed that attempts were made over a period of months to contact him regarding the situation, and that those attempts went unanswered.
At that point, the issue stops being administrative and becomes financial.
The county is now seeking reimbursement. Taxpayer money went out. The work did not come back. The gap between those two facts is now at the center of a very public dispute.
The Grants Pass Tribune formally reached out to Hare for comment, offering him the opportunity to respond directly to the county’s claims. The questions were clear: Did he receive and ignore prior correspondence? Does he intend to repay the $25,000? Is there any explanation the public should hear before conclusions are drawn?
No response was received.
A text message was also sent to Mr. Hare, providing a final opportunity to respond before publication. No response was received.
Silence, in this context, is not neutral. It leaves only the record.
And the record does not begin or end with this one contract.
Hare’s recent involvement with county government includes multiple publicly funded roles that have drawn scrutiny for how they were awarded and how they were managed. Before the budget officer contract, he was placed into a broadband grant coordination role tied to a $150,000 grant intended to put a plan together for expanding internet access across rural parts of Josephine County. Approximately $20,000 of that funding had been allocated toward paying Hare over an eight-month period.
What makes that arrangement more difficult to defend is the lack of visible results. Public records requests seeking documentation of completed work were delayed, partially fulfilled, and ultimately came with additional costs. The absence of clear deliverables has left the public with a simple question: what, exactly, was accomplished if anything in those eight months?
One Josephine County resident familiar with the project stated that the county may have missed out on millions of dollars in additional grants to actually build out broadband infrastructure because the follow-up work and coordination after this planning grant were lacking.
Then there is the matter of a separate $3,200 in payments authorized by Commissioner John West to Hare for related work that was not formally approved and not tied to a county contract. That transaction, conducted outside standard procedures, has fueled ongoing concerns about whether personal relationships were influencing financial decisions inside past county government.
Hare, for his part, should have known that a contract needed to be in place before he began receiving payments.
Individually, each of these issues raises eyebrows. Together, they form a pattern.
It is a pattern defined by informal arrangements, limited transparency, and public funds moving without clear accountability.
Hare has attempted to shift the focus. In his resignation letter, he accused county leadership of operating through closed-door decisions and internal power structures that bypass public oversight. He described a system that, in his view, is driven more by internal alliances than by the public interest.
Those claims may resonate with some voters. Josephine County has seen its share of political conflict, and frustration with government transparency is not new.
But accusations do not erase obligations.
The same letter that criticizes the system does not answer the question now in front of that system: what happens to the $25,000?
That question becomes even more significant when placed next to Hare’s campaign for treasurer. The position is not ceremonial. It requires strict adherence to Oregon law, disciplined financial management, and a clear understanding of what public funds can and cannot be used for.
During a recent radio appearance, Hare suggested that one of his first actions as treasurer would be to invest county funds into precious metals. That proposal, while attention-grabbing, runs directly into legal boundaries that govern how public money can be managed. County funds are not speculative capital. They are restricted by law to conservative, regulated investment vehicles designed to protect liquidity and minimize risk.
The suggestion alone raises questions about familiarity with those constraints.
And that brings the issue full circle.
A candidate for treasurer is now facing a demand to return public funds tied to incomplete work. He has not publicly responded. He has not clarified his position. He has not indicated whether repayment will occur.
Instead, the situation continues to sit unresolved.
For voters, this is no longer about political alignment or campaign messaging. It is about something far more basic.
When public money is paid out, does the public receive what it paid for?
And when it does not, does the person responsible make it right?
Those are not abstract questions. They are measurable. They are immediate. And in this case, they come with a number attached.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
Until that number is addressed, the rest of the conversation surrounding Simon Hare’s candidacy remains secondary.
The elected Treasurer is also responsible for county tax collections. According to current county officials, Simon Hare is now in debt to Josephine County.