"We are gathered here today to talk about the NPS budget," noted NPS President retired Vice Adm. Ronald A. Route. "Provost Lerman and I just came back from a week in Washington at our Board of Advisors meeting. That group was very supportive of us, and will continue to work in Washington to help us reach the highest levels with our message."

NPS' resource sponsor, the Chief of Naval Personnel, maintained the university's direct funding level, something many activities throughout the Navy were unable to accomplish.

"When it came time to take offsets from what people had in their budget, they did not come to us to find that money," said Route. "There is always more demand for what we have than what we get, but we were able to preserve what we had planned going into this."

Provost Dr. Steven R. Lerman discussed the challenges associated with budgeting in a resource-constrained environment, but stressed that in the end, NPS is positioned to accomplish its unique mission of graduate education and research.

"An enormous amount of work went into this," said Lerman. "That doesn't mean that everybody gets everything they want. With the nature of budgeting, you can't say yes to everybody … But it does mean that we can be more transparent, and I will try to do that from my office.

"We pulled together a budget that we think best reflects what priorities we need to fill," continued Lerman. "I think we are at an inflection point, and our leadership has helped make that happen."