Work smarter, not harder. 1000s of students are in college paying for an education right now hoping to get real world experience and many are close to graduating in December or May. Why not partner with the top universities like Rice, Baylor, A&M, etc in the area with the engineering and accounting/finance departments and ask the questions. They get a grade for the project, experience for their resume, and the city gets a plan. Yes a consulting engineering firm can tighten up loose ends and handle city legal requirements. A smart leader has people even smarter than him on their team. The kids these days are so far advanced AI users and other softwares, get the free help. Yes he is being dropped off at the bottom of the hole, but it's his decision if he crawls out or stays there. He wanted that job and I believe he will thrive if he knows how to tackle repetitive spending without much ROI, repetitive actions without ROI, etc l. AI can do a lot of this. He still has a lot of money to work with, glass is half full not empty.