PROVIDENCE — As lawmakers debate a proposal that would force Twin River to drop its plans to suspend live dog-racing, a 2004 state budget office report has resurfaced that disputes the greyhound owners’ recurring argument that that the loss of racing would cost the state millions and millions of video-slot dollars.

The debate that year centered on a different issue: Republican Governor Carcieri’s effort to end the state’s payment to the dog owners of upward of $10 million annually out of its own share of the video-slot play at what was then called Lincoln Park.

Carcieri called it a state subsidy that primarily benefited out-of-state greyhound owners “living in places like Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.” The dog owners — and their backers at the State House — called it a part of a “fair-share plan” aimed at compensating them for the introduction of another gambling activity in their arena.

But the governor ultimately prevailed. State lawmakers ended the taxpayer subsidy, and the new owners of Twin River made their own commitment to pay the kennel owners in the dwindling dog-racing industry a reported $9 million to $10 million annually, which has become one more in a series of expenses the owners have reportedly tried to reduce or shed.

And just last week, the owners of the financially struggling slot parlor, in default to their lenders on more than a half-billion dollars in loans, have announced their intent to suspend live dog racing indefinitely on Aug. 8 to conserve cash in anticipation of a potential bankruptcy filing.

The dog owners and their State House lobbyists are once again raising the prospect of major job and revenue losses should dog racing end, and Sen. Frank Ciccone, a Providence Democrat who doubles as a high-ranking official in the Laborers International Union in Rhode Island, has introduced legislation that would essentially force Twin River to continue the racing..

The dog owners project $7.5 million in state revenue losses based, in large part, on their assumption that video-slot revenue would drop by more than $5.5 million annually if gamblers were not drawn to the former Lincoln Park to see the dog races. Among their other assumptions: $337,500 in lost income taxes from the 225 laid off kennel workers, judges, pari-mutuel clerks, concessionaires and security staff.

Twin River disputes the projections, and on Friday, the Carcieri administration — in response to a public-document request — resurrected the 2004 report that said dog-racing had little to no impact on the state’s take from the 4,752 video-slots that are a big cash-maker at Twin River. “The governor has said all along if it doesn’t make sense to have dog-racing at Twin River, let’s get rid of it,” Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe reiterated on Friday.

Among the key findings of the budget office report titled, “A Critical Assessment of the Importance of Greyhound Racing in Rhode Island:”

•250 out of 286 (or 87 percent) of the greyhound owners lived outside Rhode Island.

•Greyhound racing “has a no effect on VLT revenues.”

•Rhode Island’s greyhound racing industry was in steep decline before the installation of simulcast or VLTs at Lincoln Park. Gross wagering on live greyhound racing at Lincoln Park declined by 6 percent from 1987 to 1990. This decline continued with the addition of simulcast pari-mutuel in 1991… Gross wagering on live races declined by another 21.8 percent in 1992. … Between 1993 and 2002, wagering on live greyhound races at Lincoln Park has declined by another 62 percent to $29.9 million.”

Bottom line: “Since the installation of VLTs at Lincoln Park in 1993, the decline of greyhound racing has accelerated.”

Updated information from the Department of Business Regulation shows: Wagering on the dog races has dropped from $37.9 million a decade ago to $13.2 million in 2008, with the owners getting roughly $1.7 million and the state, just shy of $1 million after the winners were paid.

But a spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Greyhound Owners said the budget office arrived at “false conclusions based on erroneous information.”

For example, spokeswoman Jennifer Bramley said, she did not know where the majority of the dog-owners live, but “50 percent of the dogs” are owned by Rhode Islanders so that would suggest “50 percent of the money stays here.”

She also cited a 2003 report by Lawrence R. Kunkel, an economist hired by the greyhound owners, who deduced that every day races were cancelled because of kennel cough, video-slot play was down by $35,000. According to Kunkel’s five-year-old analysis, the state would lose $11 million in annual revenue, including the $2.2 million it takes from dog racing, reduced sales tax from closed concession stands, and decreased video-slots patronage if greyhound racing ceased.

Bramley said the numbers would need updating, but the dog owners still believe the races are essential to bringing 5,000 “people with a proclivity to gamble” in the door at Twin River.

kgregg@projo.com