PROVIDENCE — City leaders spent last week cheering the success of the city’s legislative package at the General Assembly this year, but that jubilation was short-lived; late last week, Governor Carcieri promptly vetoed several major bills related to Providence.

Now, the city is lobbying its General Assembly delegation to return and override the governor’s vetoes.

Two bills central to Mayor David N. Cicilline’s budget for the current fiscal year — his so-called working family tax credit, and a bill freeing cities from paying a fee for fire hydrants — were vetoed by Carcieri late last week, and Cicilline blasted Carcieri for his vetoes.

“When you look at the combination of those two bills being vetoed, it really does demonstrate again how out of touch the governor is with what working families are enduring across our state,” Cicilline said.

The tax-credit bill allows the city to reapportion city tax bills so that residents who own and occupy single-family houses worth less than $200,000, or multi-family houses worth under $275,000, would get a $250 credit on their tax bills. The cost would be borne by those who own homes on the other side of that divide.

Cicilline said he couldn’t figure out why the governor would veto a bill that would only affect Providence.

“It didn’t have implications to the state. It allowed us to give families in the city, who were most in need, some property tax relief with a tax credit. It provided some really necessary relief to the families most in need in the capital city,” Cicilline said.

Carcieri and Cicilline have fought a public war of words in recent weeks over immigration, but Cicilline said he did not think that played a role in the vetoes.

“I certainly hope that that has nothing to do with it — I don’t have any reason to think that it did,” Cicilline said.

To Carcieri, the bill would set a dangerous precedent of applying different tax rates depending on the value of residential property.

“Once the state has authorized something for one community, it is difficult to say no to another,” he wrote in his veto message, while noting that a state group is studying tax policy right now, and he would prefer to let that group reach conclusions before any major changes are made.

Providence is perhaps more affected by Carcieri’s veto of the hydrant rental fee bill, which amounted to a $1-million savings Providence was counting on to help balance its budget.

The bill would have removed the hydrant rental fees that are charged to cities and towns by water providers. Eliminating the fees would have forced water authorities to cover the cost from general water bills, thus forcing the property tax-exempt institutions that crowd Providence to pay along with other taxpayers.

The bill has been submitted by Providence year after year to failure, but this year it was championed by the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns as one of the group’s top priorities. With broader support, particularly from Pawtucket, it passed.

But Carcieri vetoed the bill Thursday, leaving Providence with a bigger hole in its budget.

Carcieri said that he felt hydrants belonged under the umbrella of municipal public safety, and water authorities should be able to charge cities and towns for them.

The governor doesn’t want to see the cost of rentals spread among water authority customers, saying that hydrants are part of the public safety operation, and belong as municipal costs, paid for through city taxes.

“Although there are reasonable arguments that this is a way to make tax-exempt organizations pay for public safety costs and that municipalities require new sources of revenue or expanded ways of reducing cost, I believe that such hydrant rentals fees are a realistic public safety cost which should be borne by the municipality and not water users.”

The message was somewhat mixed, and even seemed sympathetic, acknowledged Dan Beardsley, executive director of the League of Cities and Towns, but “Unfortunately, his sympathy didn’t go far enough.”

Now, even if the Assembly does return — which Beardsley said may be unlikely — this bill could face an uphill battle.

“I honestly don’t know. It passed both the House and Senate on procedural maneuvers so there wasn’t an overwhelming majority supporting the bill,” Beardsley said.

Although the bill came in under the banner of the league, it has been Providence’s cause for so long that many legislators had a hard time seeing the coalition, Beardsley said.

“Most of them were of the belief that it was a City of Providence piece of legislation,” Beardsley said.

Carcieri also vetoed a bill affirming the Providence Redevelopment Authority’s ability to purchase blighted property.

Now, Cicilline is left crossing his fingers and lobbying the city’s powerful Assembly members to return to session.

“It’s very disappointing. I’m hoping that the legislature will return,” Cicilline said.

dbarbari@projo.com