This looks like pretty old style (aka perl 4) code.

You should use my in front of variables and you don't need & to call functions anymore.

To answer your question, the real problem are the many positional parameters you need.

In this case "Throw away" variables help documenting your code and improve readability.

BUT the far better solution would be to pass named arguments.¹

edit

e.g.

ampNotify(
   who          => "su_and_it",
   subject      => "Error processing $filename",
   severity     => 3,
   othercontact => "None",
   path         => $work_dir,
   file         => $missingdeptfilename,
   message      => <<"__message__");
Server: $server
File: $origfile
Error: Departments missing from WWMBR_NAMES.TXT
__message__
[download]

Please note that the use of a here-doc for the message is not essential for this solution, you are also free to write something like

ampNotify(
   ...
   message      => 
qq(Server: $server
File: $origfile
Error: Departments missing from WWMBR_NAMES.TXT),
   othercontact => "None",
   ...
);
[download]

TIMTOWTDI, Perl gives you the freedom to chose the best readable/maintainable form for your team, even an extra $message variable can be a good choice here.

UPDATE

changed the order of arguments, since Here doc must immediately follow the opening << line.

Thanks to choroba for messaging me. :)

¹) example