Liberty Lake Parks and Arts Commission approves 2024–28 draft budget, shifts funding toward murals and beautification

The City of Liberty Lake Parks and Arts Commission voted Aug. 4 to approve a final draft of its 2024–28 parks and arts budget and to reallocate money toward murals, beautification and community-art planning. The commission also approved a set of related actions including a $1,000 artist stipend for an Orchard Park boulder-painting safety project, a partnership with a climbing vendor and a fee schedule update for 2026.

The vote finalizes a package of carryovers and new placeholders the commission says will let staff and artists plan projects scheduled between 2025 and 2028. Commissioners emphasized shifting the previously planned Kramer Park roundabout work into murals and reserving funds for art tied to upcoming city building renovations.

Commission member Laura Frank, who led several cost estimates for murals, told the commission that a single-court basketball mural at Rocky Hill could be budgeted at about $12,000 — "$10,000 budget with maybe a $2,000 contingency seems reasonable" — and that muralists she consulted use per-square-foot pricing. "For a reasonably complex mural the $35 to $40 per square foot seemed like a reasonable estimate," Frank said; using that approach she estimated fully wrapping the Orchard Park building at roughly $35,000 depending on which walls are done.

Why it matters: the commissions' decisions set the funding priorities that staff will present to city council during the municipal budgeting process. Commissioners said the changes are intended to move several multi-year…