I could combine the two sql statements into one statement

Well, you could with a union:

  select 't1', count(*) from t1
  union
  select 't2', count(*) from t2
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... but you must add something to each select (here, the name of the table as a string) to what is returned in order to guarantee that you can determine which count(*) corresponds to which table. You never know which order they'll come back in. But now you have just about as much make-work code to pick the apart the result set and get what you want.

My advice would be to encapsulate it in a sub and use cached prepares.

my $t1_count = table_row_count( $dbh, 'table1' );
my $t2_count = table_row_count( $dbh, 'table2' );

sub table_row_count {
    my $db    = shift;
    my $table = shift;
    my $sth = $db->prepare_cached(
        "select count(*) from $table"
    );
    $sth->execute();
    return $sth->fetchrow_array;
}
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Error checking is left as an exercise to the reader.