I'm having a helluva time with this and hoping I can get some tips here.

Our company works with school districts across California. We help them find and manage money for the construction of schools and whatnot. We've developed a web based project tracking and reporting tool which has been a pretty big hit with the people we've shown it to. The thing is, for the last 18 months, we've focused on functionality and not style. At this point we want to doll it up and make it like nice and professional.

I got a quote from the graphic artist who is designing our brochure for the product and although he is a pro and his brochure is damn nice the quote sounds like its entirely too much for what we want. So I decided to check out craigslist and for the last week I've been going through postings there. Its getting very tiring.

WEBDESIGN FOR $299 INCL FLASH HEADER and MAIL FORM LOWEST PRICE EVER!!
Stunning WebSite Designs - High Quality Templates from $40
DO YOU NEED A BASIC AND PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE? O.C. <--this guy was really horrible

Most of the time I'm less than impressed with their "portfolios" and I can never tell if "Pyramid Web Development" or "Advanced Technology Solutions" is an actual company or some dude with a copy of Dreamweaver. I've gone through a ton of these people's sites and they all look the same at this point.

I then tried "freelance web development" which got me to a bunch of web developers in India, Romania and Croatia. I'm pretty sure I'd like someone a BIT more local. Variations on this search weren't much more helpful.

So how do I find someone for this and what should I be looking for? Is there a US based website where I can bid this out? Is craigslist a bad idea? Anyone have recommendations for someone based in So Cal?

Thanks ahead for any tips.