WATERLOO — Waterloo Mayor Dave Jaworsky says he's putting an end to closed-door budget meetings at city hall that the Ontario ombud has described as illegal and "hocus-pocus, hanky-panky."

Jaworsky visited The Record newsroom Thursday and said the city should not have held private budget meetings with staff.

"We tried to implement a good business practice that was within the realm of what we could do and do it efficiently," Jaworsky said. "What we didn't move forward was also openness and transparency.

"We've changed everything as of today to make all future budget discussions only open, only transparent."

Time for questions about the city budget has been added near the end of Monday's 6:30 p.m. council agenda. Jaworsky said citizens can participate.

It was revealed in a public council meeting last week that staff and councillors were meeting in secret to discuss the budget.

The city clerk said at the time the meetings were being limited to three councillors at once to get around open meeting rules in the Municipal Act, which governs councils.

In a public budget meeting Monday, budget chair Coun. Jeff Henry encouraged councillors to save detailed budget questions for the secret meetings.

While declining to be interviewed, Henry said in an email Thursday that he agreed with the mayor on cancelling closed-door budget sessions.

"I've rarely seen something so contemptuous of the rule of law," said Ontario ombud Andre Marin in an interview. "Basically, city council's saying we're breaking the law and we don't care — it's such a transparent, amateurish attempt at just flaunting the law."

Marin polices the province's open meeting laws and called the city's secret meetings "a farce." He said if he was charged with investigating Waterloo, he would deem the sessions illegal.

He took to Twitter this week to denounce what the city was doing.

"If there's all this hocus-pocus, hanky-panky behind the scenes, the citizens lose confidence in their government," Marin said. "What's the downside of having citizens listen to your questions and listen to the answers to your questions about budget deliberations?"

Locally, only the City of Kitchener uses the ombud to investigate complaints about closed meetings. Cambridge, Waterloo and the region use Local Authority Services, a subsidiary of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which lobbies for cities.

Jaworsky said the city is committed to transparency.

"I really got to keep my eye on not just doing business, but thinking first with openness and transparency, so that even if I have innocuous questions about the budget, maybe there's someone who might find my questions of interest," he said.

Exactly who proposed holding the secret sessions in Waterloo isn't clear.

Jaworsky said the answer is "lost in the annals of history."

The decision to cancel the behind-the-scenes meetings comes after The Record reported Thursday Coun. Bob Mavin had to resort to a freedom of information request to get budget questions answered.

He requested answers to several detailed questions Monday, informing staff he'd like the responses for budget day on Feb. 9.

Mavin was told he would need a vote of council for staff to do the work, a decision Henry said he and the chief financial officer had made.

But the change in budget process Jaworsky has pledged to make might not be much help to Mavin.

When asked about it, Jaworsky said, "I'm not sure what he's looking for there, so that would be a better question for Bob."

Mavin said Thursday afternoon he had not seen any progress on his requests.

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He's in a unique position on council as the city's former chief financial officer.

Mavin was hired by Waterloo in 2003 in the wake of the city's failed financing scheme for RIM Park. Former chief financial officer John Ford resigned after the RIM Park scandal.

Officials thought they would pay $112.9 million over 30 years — the actual cost was $227.7 million over 30 years at an interest rate of 9.2 per cent. The whopping discrepancy sparked a flurry of negotiations, lawsuits and a nine-month inquiry that cost $3.8 million. The city is still saddled with debt because of it.

Mavin retired in 2012. He later decided to run for city council and was acclaimed in 2014.

He criticized the closed meetings this week, saying, "you're spending the taxpayer's dollar, they should know some of the discussion and the points of views and the options that were discussed."

The ombud agreed.

"The public wants to see these things happen, especially budget discussion," Marin said. "We're not talking here about, should we cover a manhole or uncover it? We're talking fiscal management of the city.

"So what's the problem?"

Ombudsman weighs in Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin commented via Twitter on Wednesday’s story regarding secret budget meetings:

Has Waterloo uncovered some clever and sneaky stratagem to get around the #OpenMtgs law? http://t.co/FxjObsFBzl via @wr_record

1/3 Um, no. U can't play municipal music chairs 2 get around the law. What's happening here is called "serial" mtgs. http://t.co/FxjObsFBzl — Ontario Ombudsman (@Ont_Ombudsman) January 21, 2015

2/3 It's amateurish & illegal. It's like covering up your license plate so the cops can't run your plates when you speed. — Ontario Ombudsman (@Ont_Ombudsman) January 21, 2015

3/3 But heck, why not do it if you can get away with it. Waterloo picked AMO's LAS to "investigate" #OpenMtgs violation. So council's safe — Ontario Ombudsman (@Ont_Ombudsman) January 21, 2015

— Ontario Ombudsman (@Ont_Ombudsman) January 21, 2015

- Waterloo councillor calling out city on budget transparency