The Office of State Personnel found that there is no basis to allegations that former Division of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Bill Gore used favoritism in hiring.

The claims were made by Gore's former second-in-command, Wayne Hurder. Hurder was fired in November after an internal DMV investigation found that he had allowed a Greene County patronage boss, Eddie Carroll Thomas, to have longstanding and widespread influence over personnel matters within the Driver and Vehicle Services section.

Hurder claimed in a suit filed shortly after his termination that Gore had violated personnel procedures in seeking to help two people get DMV positions, reports Dan Kane. One is the son of a former neighbor of Gore's who won a summer internship; the other was a temporary DMV employee who sought a fulltime job.

An investigation by the state personnel office found that Hurder came up with the idea of the summer internship and set it in motion, and did not raise objections about it at the time. Another person who had no connection to Gore was selected for a second internship.

As for the temporary employee, the investigation found that Gore expressed an interest in hiring him fulltime because he had fixed some equipment that others responsible for the repair had failed to fix. But the investigation found that Gore did not get involved in the hiring process as the temporary employee applied for two jobs, one of which he won.

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