GAO Cites Contractors’ Expenses as Questionable : Defense: Two Orange County firms are included in report that alleges overbilling of Pentagon, including for resort trips.

Two Orange County defense companies allegedly billed the Pentagon for hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal or questionable expenses, including trips to exotic resorts for executives and spouses, alcoholic beverages and unexplained consultant costs.

Sparta Inc. in Laguna Hills and SRS Technologies in Newport Beach were two of eight military contractors whose government billing practices were audited by the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

While the report does not publicly break down the specific questionable expenses by company, a congressional source identified those incurred by the Orange County firms.

Sparta allegedly sought government reimbursement for trips to the Caribbean, Mexico and Hawaii. The trips reportedly were taken for annual management and business meetings.

On a trip to Jamaica for which Sparta sought $102,000 in reimbursements, according to the congressional sources, the company sent 151 employees to Montego Bay to attend its annual shareholders meeting. The employees brought along 112 spouses or guests, but the report does not say whether their expenses were billed to the government.

The company reportedly claimed the costs of meetings in resort areas as a form of incentive compensation.

The GAO report questions whether the government “should pay for contractor employees to attend business meetings at resort locations.”

It does not specify whether the Pentagon had requested the return of any of the questioned expenses.

Sparta is also accused of illegally billing the Pentagon for meals for spouses, alcoholic beverages and for inadequately documented consultant fees, according a source familiar with the audit.

Officials at Sparta and SRS Technologies would not comment on the report Thursday evening and did not appear at a congressional hearing Thursday.

Even after Sparta was notified in 1992 of the scrutiny by congressional investigators, a GAO analyst said, company officials billed the government for $229,000 for a trip to Hawaii.

SRS Technologies is accused of illegally billing the government for the personal use of a company car, alcoholic beverages, inadequately documented consultant costs and the company’s legal costs in a lawsuit against the government.

It also allegedly billed $44,000 for a trip that 40 employees and one consultant to the company took to a Bermuda resort. The GAO said it considered this cost questionable but not forbidden by regulations.

“No, this is not Donald Trump’s Visa bill,” Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. “It’s the tab the American taxpayers are picking up for what defense contractors euphemistically call ‘overhead.’ ”

Two GAO audits turned up $4.9 million in questionable or illegal expenses. That amount was in addition to $4.4 million in charges that the Pentagon’s own contract watchdog agency had rejected.