Kevin, the presenter from the Vermont Futures Project, told the committee the competitiveness dashboard is intended as a comparative, research‑driven tool to guide policy and legislative work. "Data is not destiny," he said, and urged lawmakers to use the dashboard to ask better questions about where the state needs to act.

The dashboard shows Vermont ranked 49th out of 50 states on population change for 2024 and 46th out of 51 for housing permits. Kevin said the state was estimated to have a net population loss of about 215 people after accounting for births, deaths, in‑migration and out‑migration. He described the tiles and map features that let users compare Vermont with peer states and examine the components behind composite indices.

Committee members asked how much of the population shift may stem from local permitting and housing supply constraints. Kevin said he had not completed a direct comparative causal study but emphasized the conceptual link that population cannot grow without space for people to live. He also noted that Vermont performs well on talent attraction scores but struggles with retention: "a lot of our students are leaving after they graduate" unless there are local job opportunities.

Several members raised data availability and transparency issues. Kevin cited inconsistent or revised data from sources such as the Agency of Education, and asked the committee for help identifying missing explanations or underlying datasets. He also said the Vermont Futures Project has limited capacity — he described himself as the only full‑time staff and said the project's annual budget is about $150,000.

The presentation closed with a practical call to use the dashboard for targeted policymaking — for example, measuring housing unit needs and aligning regulations and incentives to meet those goals. Kevin repeated that the dashboard is a public resource and offered to help bring additional data into the tool.

The committee did not take formal votes during the presentation; members requested follow‑up analyses and additional datasets to inform potential legislative responses.