nagios_contact no longer is able to parse utf-8 from nagios config files

Our manifest used to work with Ubuntu precise 12.04 amd64. I upgraded ubuntu, which upgraded ruby. That should be the limit of the changes to the environment.

Repeatedly applying the attached manifest results in the output below:

1. puppet apply test.pp
   Notice: Compiled catalog for monitor.corp.zenrobotics.com in environment production in 0.04 seconds
   Error: Could not convert change 'alias' to string: incompatible character encodings: ASCII-8BIT and UTF-8
   Error: Could not convert change 'alias' to string: incompatible character encodings: ASCII-8BIT and UTF-8
   Error: /Stage[main]/Main/Nagios_contact[ptman]: Could not evaluate: Puppet::Util::Log requires a message
   Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.34 seconds
   Error: Could not write report for monitor.corp.zenrobotics.com at /var/lib/puppet/reports/monitor.corp.zenrobotics.com/201409301029.yaml: incompatible character encodings: ASCII-8BIT and UTF-8
   Error: Could not send report: incompatible character encodings: ASCII-8BIT and UTF-8

If the accented character are removed or replaced, the errors go away. But trying to apply the manifest with utf-8 again results in no errors on the first run, and the same error on subsequent runs, which leads me to believe that the problem is in the provider parsing the current state of the config files.