The Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District, of which Harvard is a charter member, gained a new executive director this week, even as the dispatch center’s finances were undergoing audits to straighten out past irregularities.
From among nine applicants for the executive director’s post, the district’s administration board chose M. Ross Klun, who not only has more than two decades of experience in regional emergency dispatch but has also received two American Red Cross Life Saving Heroes Awards.
Ross Klun. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
The regional dispatch center began operations in 2013 as a crucial link in the area’s emergency services, answering 911 calls from the residents of Harvard, Devens, Lancaster, and Lunenburg. Since then Berlin, Bolton, and Townsend have joined the district, bringing the total to seven communities to which the center dispatches police, ambulance, and fire services.
Before becoming the NVRDD’s director, Klun most recently served as senior operations manager with the Barnstable County sheriff’s office, where he worked for the past 23 years, according to his letter of application. In that position, he managed a computer-aided dispatch system and developed the training program for the county’s communications center. For many years, Klun was also on call as a fire captain in the Brewster Fire Department, with extensive specialized training and certifications.
A dramatic rescue
Klun received the American Red Cross Life Saving Heroes Award twice, most recently for an event in October 2016. While on his way home from work, he saw a crowd gathered on a bridge above the Charles River. A man was floating in the river, his face under water. According to the Red Cross award website, “Without hesitation Klun jumped twenty feet into the water below without knowing the depth or danger this might present. He quickly rolled the victim over and got him breathing again.” A state police boat reached the scene shortly thereafter and pulled both men from the water. Klun’s earlier award came in 2008 for his assistance to a woman who had been seriously injured in a nighttime automobile crash on a remote highway.
Klun has been interested in a top-level position with emergency services for several years, he said in a brief telephone interview. Klun lived on Cape Cod all his adult life until three years ago, when he moved to Somerville. He said he’d driven some back roads in the Nashoba Valley area and found parts of this area to be a little more rural than Barnstable County. “But the biggest difference,” he joked, “is that Cape Cod is surrounded by water.”
Harvard Town Administrator Tim Bragan, who is a member of the NVRDD administration board, said Klun’s work in the Barnstable area had given him experience with emergency dispatching in a district with multiple towns. Bragan said the Nashoba dispatch system was designed with a goal of serving seven communities, its current number of members. Although some other communities have considered joining, Bragan said further expansion may have to wait until the organization has more office space and technical capacity.
A legacy of financial confusion
Until Klun’s arrival this week, the post of executive director had been vacant since early June, when the previous director, Nathan Kenney, resigned. Kenney had held the job since 2013. His resignation came despite a $25,000 raise (to $100,000) proposed for his position in fiscal 2018, according to minutes of the administration board’s May 15 meeting.
“Nathan resigned due to personal reasons,” Bragan said in an interview this week.
Minutes of the administration board’s Aug. 15 meeting indicated that Kenney left the NVRDD’s financial affairs in confusion. Unpaid vendor invoices totaled about $700,000, some of which had to be paid with a loan from the MassDevelopment Finance Agency. The minutes also reported problems with past payroll withholding practices, such that Deputy Director Kristina Morin and MassDevelopment were recalculating past payrolls “to determine the correct amounts that should have been withheld and paid and then correcting them.”
Asked if any of the dispatch center’s money was missing, Bragan said, “There are no funds missing.” He confirmed that audits of the NVRDD’s accounts were continuing.
Despite the financial problems, however, Bragan said the cooperative dispatch system had fulfilled its goal of cutting costs for member towns. Since the NVRDD began four years ago, he said, the dispatch costs for Harvard have fallen sharply. In fiscal 2014, public safety communications costs were about $252,000, while the fiscal 2018 budget sets that line item at $167,293.
