Amid new figures that show the governor's statewide property-tax hike will claim more than twice the amount originally promised, two Republican lawmakers are saying they will try to give voters a chance to repeal the measure.

As reported in today's Rocky Mountain News, Sen. Mike Kopp, of Littleton, and Rep. Cory Gardner, of Yuma, announced this week they will carry a bill to refer the matter to the November 2008 ballot so that voters can have a say over a policy that was passed last spring without public approval.

“This tax hike has become a runaway train. The state’s take just keeps rising," Kopp said. "The state’s top attorney has advised the legislature that this issue has to go to the people. That didn’t happen, and now we’re looking at an ever-growing tax increase that the citizens have yet to vote on.”

Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, were recognized this week for their work on behalf of Colorado's rural community banks. The Independent Bankers of Colorado honored them with the 2007 Champions for Colorado Rural Communities Award. 

At their annual membership convention in Vail, the IBC recognized Kester and Gardner for their continued dedication to bringing bipartisan consensus and support to issues impacting rural Colorado.  A press release issued by the IBC lauded the lawmakers and affirmed that “champions such as these are necessary to ensure that rural Colorado has a voice at the Capitol.”

New legislative figures show that the statewide property-tax hike pushed through the legislature by Gov. Bill Ritter earlier this year now will gobble up more than twice the amount that was advertised when the measure passed the General Assembly.

Meanwhile, the tax hike, opposed from the outset by legislative Republicans, also got push-back this week from an unlikely quarter. Denver's Democrat City Auditor Dennis Gallagher announced that voters should temper their decision in November about raising the city's property taxes for assorted projects with the understanding that their taxes already are going up under Ritter's statewide tax hike.

The tax increase, signed into law by the governor in May, had been projected to raise an additional $48 million for the state treasury in its first year, but the new numbers compiled by the legislature's research staff at the request of Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Yuma show the first-year take is now $114 million.

Gardner and several fellow House and Senate Republican critics of the tax hike fired off a letter of protest today to the governor in response to the news.

Legislators from the Western Slope and the eastern plains are calling for an immediate, top-to-bottom review at the state Division of Wildlife following news that a program  to reintroduce a rare, native species of trout was botched.

Washington's state government imposed the same policy in 2004 that the Ritter administration is now pushing in Colorado -- letting unions collectively bargain for wages and benefits of state employees -- and that state's payroll spending soared as union ranks swelled.

The move also led to a backlash among hundreds of Washington state employees who were forced under the new labor contract to join the union and pay dues, pay "agency fees" in lieu of dues -- or lose their jobs. Some employees actually were dismissed.

That's the upshot of Washington's experience after only two fiscal years, as related in a recent report by the Seattle Times newspaper and corroborated by the Olympia, Wash.-based think tank, Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

"Collective bargaining is a shakedown from any angle, not only for the taxpayers who foot the bill but also for the additional state employees who wind up paying dues," said Colorado Senate GOP leader Andy McElhany. "Almost the only ones who come out ahead are the union bosses."