A recent editorial took the position that if Department of Motor Vehicle Commissioner Andres Ayala Jr. could not get a better handle on the problems confronting the DMV, it would be time for a change.

That time came quicker than we expected. On Wednesday, Mr. Ayala submitted his resignation.

While Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has made several solid appointments in key positions in his administration, this was not one of them, smacking of cronyism and trying too hard to provide diversity.

Prior to his selection as the boss at DMV, Mr. Ayala worked as a social studies teacher and served one term as a Democratic state senator from Bridgeport. That is a thin résumé for someone appointed to lead one of the state’s largest and most complex departments.

It was a tough year for the commissioner, appointed in December 2014. A few months after his appointment, Mr. Ayala emailed driving school operators in the state to refute reports that a new policy to give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants was increasing wait times for scheduling driver tests. In fact, as later news reporting proved, the longer wait times were tied to the heavy volume of applications from undocumented immigrants.

But it was the botched rollout of a new computer system that generated the wrath of the driving public. After closing for a week to complete the conversion, the opening of DMV offices proved to be a disaster, with long lines and wait times that stretched on for hours, far in excess of the pre-installment operations.

A troubled, but brief period of transition may have been tolerable, but this dragged on for months. And while the situation has improved, wait times still remain too long.

And there were other problems. The DMV erroneously suspended registrations because the software failed to record new or changed insurance policies. Municipal tax assessors were in some instances not getting the information they needed to update motor vehicle tax rolls.

Now comes a report from the Hartford Courant that it was pursuing information on the appointment, by Mr. Ayala, of a former Democratic Senate aide — with a criminal record for drug sales — to a position as a DMV office assistant.

This should not be the end of the matter. As noted here before, the Malloy administration needs to account for why implementation of the new computer system went so wrong and what lessons were learned.

The legislature also has a role. The bipartisan Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee should conduct a legislative hearing and probe the causes of the DMV debacle.