Regardless of the patronage issue, Kelly argues that managers have a considerable amount of flexibility in hiring under the Rule of Three, and they have the final decision on whether to use that flexibility. For example, personnel officers can choose not to fill a vacancy until another test is given and another list of eligible candidates is created, or they can fill the vacancy with a temporary employee. Using Schneider's hypothetical list of unwanted candidates, personnel officers can hire those people and help them to overcome their problems. If counseling or education does not work, the employees can be fired during a given probation period and someone else off the eligible list can be picked to fill the post. It's not a very popular thing to do.
Managers have to manage.
Sinnott and other proponents of the Rule of Ten maintain that the Rule of Three was developed at a time when the work force was smaller and vacancies arose only occasionally. Now, New York is one of only three states that have kept the system. The rest pick candidates from a broader pool, a fact that Sinnott says the unions must consider. But it seems to me that this isn't an issue for George Sinnott or George Pataki. Forty-seven other states have abandoned the Rule of Three.