I think the original contract was for under $2 million. But (at least partially) because there was no bidding process, we ended up with Trump’s pool guy who then went on to increase that contract amount by 700% to $14 million.

Presumably, change orders needed to be issued to increase the contact amount. Meaning multiple people, including engineers presumably, reviewed and approved these changes. Most places would also have an environmental review, but somehow I sincerely doubt that happened.

Every single person involved in this process needs to be, at the very least, suspended pending an investigation.

For any real contract for capital projects, a 700% increase in contract amount through change orders would never be approved, and the entity paying the contractor for the work would do everything they could to kill the contract and ensure that they don’t need to spend 700x the amount they agreed to. Because it would fuck their budget completely, among other things.