We [recently] learned that Andrew Cuomo’s book deal was worth more than $5 million — yet another fact he hid from the public until finally forced to reveal it through tax disclosures. His decision to publish a self-promotional book during the deadliest public-health crisis of our lifetimes was wrong in both principle and process.

As taxpayer-funded employees worked on his book, Gov. Cuomo and his team deliberately altered public-health reports, withheld nursing-home fatality data for months, and refused to answer questions from state lawmakers and the U.S. Department of Justice.

We don’t know how much this book guided public-health policy during the COVID pandemic. That will be a matter for investigators to determine. But we now know the governor had at least 5 million reasons to portray his “leadership” in the best possible light.          

William (Will) A. Barclay, Republican, is the New York Assembly minority leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses most of Oswego County, including the cities of Oswego and Fulton, as well as the town of Lysander in Onondaga County and town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County. Contact Barclay at barclaw@assembly.state.ny.us. This article is drawn from a statement that Barclay issued on May 17.

The rise of remote work has changed the face of business, and in some cases brightened the outlook for employees weary of battling traffic during morning and late-afternoon commutes.

Many of those employees hope their companies will stick with this new work-from-home reality even after the pandemic is nothing more than an unhappy memory.

But despite the benefits, continuing remote work beyond what is necessary could result in serious consequences.

Working from home limits the interaction between employees and their managers and co-workers. That might be fine for a short time, but over the long haul it means you aren’t developing relationships or communicating in ways necessary to create a cohesive team.

So far, most people choose to focus on the upsides. More than half — 54 percent — of remote workers say that if given a choice they would want to keep working from home even after the pandemic, according to the Pew Research Center.

Employees and their employers may both come to regret that view. Potential downsides of permanent work from home could include:

• Employee burnout. When someone leaves an office at the end of the day, they put both actual distance and emotional distance between themselves and work. With remote work, that barrier between home and work is removed, which could lead to greater instances of burnout. As a result, people are more likely to produce poor-quality work or leave their current jobs in search of something they hope will be better. 

• The end of “serendipitous” meetings. In an office setting, not every exchange of ideas happens in scheduled meetings or formal brainstorming sessions. People see each other in hallways or the breakroom and start to chat. Those organic conversations often result in creative thinking and problem solving. That’s a missing ingredient in the creative process with remote work.

• An increase of “silo-itis.” Even in an office, human nature leads people to seek out like-minded individuals, which means people within departments often stick together unless steps are taken to make sure they interact with others. With the lack of physical interaction that remote work gives us, we will be even more isolated, working only within the team structure. That’s problematic because you get better results when people come out of their silos.

• The potential for lower pay. One of the perks of remote work is that people can live where they please and no longer need to be in the same general area as company headquarters. That means they can abandon high-cost areas in favor of communities where housing is cheaper. But we already see news reports that some employers are considering paying people less as a result. 

Right now, remote work is [still] the reality for many people, so to get the most out of it, managers should be proactive about making sure remote workers are actively included in Zoom meetings. 

And while I know nobody wants more Zoom meetings, people may need to schedule one-on-one time with coworkers or to gather virtually in small groups just to chat and discuss non-work-related topics. 

That can help restore some of those serendipitous moments and reduce the problems associated with a return to silos.

Clint Padgett (www.clintonmpadgett.com), the ForbesBooks author of “How Teams Triumph: Managing By Commitment,” is president and CEO of Project Success Inc., a project-management company.

We Americans have long prided ourselves on offering a safe haven to people seeking refuge from conflict and repression. The theme is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Refugees have contributed immeasurably to American life. They include world-changing figures like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, visionary artists like Marc Chagall, popular entertainers like Gloria Estefan, respected musicians like my Indiana University faculty colleague Menahem Pressler, and two secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright.

The question of how many refugees to admit has always been challenging, however. With an estimated 26 million refugees in the world today, we clearly can’t accommodate them all. But we can do more than we have been doing in recent years.

Under law, refugees are defined as people who have experienced or have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs, or membership in a social group. People who flee poverty and hardship, no matter how severe, don’t qualify.

The issue gets complicated because refugee policy is related to, and sometimes confused with, immigration policy. With immigration, we should set consistent priorities that benefit America. Immigrants who are well educated and highly skilled, especially in science and engineering, are important for our economy. At the same time, employers are struggling to fill jobs at the low end of the pay scale, which immigrants may want.

Welcoming refugees is more of a compassionate responsibility. We want to do our part, within our capacity, to help people who have been displaced by war and violence or who cannot live safely in their home countries. Our refugee policy is an important aspect of our foreign policy. It sends a clear signal about our role in the world and the kind of nation we are.

Since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, the U.S. has admitted 3.1 million refugees. In recent years, many have fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with many others coming from Myanmar and Ukraine. The largest numbers have settled in Texas, Washington, Ohio, California, and New York.

The number of refugees entering the United States reached 85,000 in the last year of the Obama presidency. But President Donald Trump, with his “America First” approach, gradually reduced the ceiling for annual refugee admissions to 15,000, at a time when the number of worldwide refugees reached its highest level since World War II. Trump’s travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries choked off the flow of refugees from the Middle East, including war-torn Syria, with more than 6 million refugees.

Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to dramatically raise the cap on refugees. For more than three months, however, he took a cautious approach, leaving the number where Trump had set it and frustrating refugee advocates. Recently, saying the refugee program “embodies America’s commitment to protect the most vulnerable and to stand as a beacon of liberty and refuge to the world,” Biden raised the refugee ceiling for this fiscal year to 62,500.

Going further, he wants to set a goal of admitting 125,000 refugees next year. That won’t be easy. Vetting of refugee applicants by the State Department takes nearly two years, on average. Resettling refugees relies on nonprofit agencies that will need to add staff and recruit volunteers after the relative inactivity of the Trump years. And there is sure to be political resistance.

But a smart, thoughtful, and compassionate policy on refugees is in America’s national interest. It’s good that we are taking up the challenge of getting the policy right.        

Lee Hamilton, 90, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south central Indiana.