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By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Dozens of New Democrat MPs, including Leader Tom Mulcair, have been ordered to reimburse taxpayers $2.75 million in salaries paid to aides who worked in satellite party offices.

The secretive, multi-party Board of Internal Economy, which polices House of Commons spending, has sent bills to 68 MPs, including several who no longer sit as New Democrats, ordering them to personally repay the money.

The board ruled last August that the MPs had inappropriately used their House of Commons budgets to pay for 28 employees in satellite party offices in Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.

On average, sources say the MPs are being asked to pay back about $30,000.

But for some MPs the tab is more than $100,000; sources say the leader's office is being asked to reimburse about $400,000.

The NDP is challenging the board's ruling on the satellite offices in Federal Court, as well as an earlier ruling that found New Democrat MPs had wrongly used $1.17 million worth of free parliamentary mailing privileges to paper 26 ridings with almost 2 million partisan missives.

In the case of the mailings, the board ordered the MPs to repay $36,000 to the Commons and urged Canada Post to recover the rest.

It emerged Tuesday that lawyers for the board and the NDP have been discussing the possibility of an out-of-court settlement of both matters and jointly asked the court last November to suspend proceedings pending further negotiations.

Those negotiations are still in progress.

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NDP MPs ordered to repay $2.75 million