A couple of comments indirectly related to this question:

• Do you manage the set of users that should access this utility in some centralized database (LDAP, ADAM, NIS+, ...)? If so, it may be worth while to add the group to the sudoers file. By adding the group (and tying it to your central user database), your management becomes much easier, and adding or removing access happens as part of your central operations instead of as a one-off step.
• If you have the password available in the perl script, the user will be able (given sufficient tools) to read the perl script and find the password to the account. Perl scripts (typically) must be readable by the users that are executing them.