Shawn Feddeman, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Romney's staff is seeking a meeting with local officials and legislators to "discuss the project further."

Feddeman reiterated the administration's explanation that Romney vetoed the measure because "we simply did not have enough information to sign off on the funds." But she added that "we will work with the city to see if we can gather the appropriate facts."

Peabody officials have strongly disputed that the administration lacked that information.

Mayor Michael J. Bonfanti said Tuesday that a member of the governor's staff had called him that morning to propose setting up a meeting among administration and Peabody officials to discuss the funding proposal.

Bonfanti said he welcomed the meeting, whose time and place had not yet been set.

"The intent of all parties is to work together and resolve this longstanding problem," he said of the city's chronic flooding.

He said the governor's staff member also apologized for any miscommunication that might have occurred over the issue.

Bonfanti said he is encouraged that "at least we are going to be in the same room talking about the problem and coming to common ground on ways to solve it."

The $5.7 million proposed by the city would be allocated to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency to leverage $22 million in federal funds for the flood mitigation project.

The combined state and federal funds would help pay for the cost of having the US Army Corps of Engineers dig two culverts beneath downtown Peabody. The city is seeking the work to prevent the flooding that occurs in the city during heavy rains.

Most recently, downtown Peabody sustained substantial flooding during this year's April 1-2 storm, in which an estimated 8 inches of rain fell on the city over a 24-hour period. After that storm, President Bush, at Romney's request, declared Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties a federal disaster area.

The $5.7 million for Peabody was part of $76 million Romney vetoed Sept. 17 from a supplemental spending bill. Peabody officials were upset not only with the veto but with comments Romney made at a State House press conference in which he said he had sought unsuccessfully to obtain information on the funding request from Peabody officials.

On Tuesday, Feddeman said: "The administration is not a rubber stamp for the expenditure of taxpayer funds. If we don't have enough information to support a particular project, our inclination would be to err on the side of caution and to wait until a rationale is put forward."

In a letter to Romney dated Monday, Bonfanti and the city's legislators, Senate majority leader Frederick E. Berry, and Representatives Joyce Spiliotis and Theodore C. Speliotis, insisted that they had worked closely with the administration in seeking the funds.

They said it was at the suggestion of representatives of the state's emergency management agency, part of Romney's administration, that the legislators had worked to secure the appropriation. They also pointed to contacts they had had with the administration over the last several weeks.

Those included Berry's notification to the emergency agency by e-mail on Sept. 10 that the Legislature had approved the funding, a conversation Berry had with Secretary of Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss Sept. 16, and written documentation on the funding request supplied to the governor's office after that phone call. Berry also spoke that day with Cristine McCombs, director of the emergency agency.

"For these reasons, your assertion that your decision to veto this funding was necessary because of a lack of information about the flooding problem in Peabody is very hard to believe," the officials wrote.

Berry said Tuesday that he welcomes the idea of a meeting.

"Every time Peabody has one of these floods, it costs the state a lot of money, it costs the city a lot of money, and it costs property owners a lot of money," he said. "We have to resolve these problems."

But Berry continued to express puzzlement at the veto and the governor's subsequent comments.

"It was their project," he said, noting that officials of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency had developed the flood mitigation plan in discussions with the Army Corps, city officials, and legislators.

"It just seems absurd they couldn't get information, when in fact it was their plan," Berry said. "It's just frustrating to have the governor take directions from his political wing, rather than the good people he has to help him solve problems."