I wonder how much he charges for design work? Cause if it's $4/hour I've got some stuff he can do.
I'm also not assuming that this will be worked on full-time. If it was, I wouldn't expect it to take more than about a week.
In that respect even if you don't live in the west, I'm sure anyone you would want to work with you on a project charges more than $4/hr part time or not, regardless of where they live.