This is tangential to the main theme of this thread, but a statement like
    $hash{$int} = '"RECNO": "' . $row->{RECNO} . '","DESCRIPTION": "' . $row->{DESCRIPTION} .'"';
can be written in what I consider a much more readable way as, e.g.,
    $hash{$int} = qq{"RECNO": "$row->{RECNO}","DESCRIPTION": "$row->{DESCRIPTION}"};
using the  qq{} generic double-quotish (i.e., interpolating) string constructor (see Quote and Quote-like Operators in perlop). Note that bracketing delimiters handle balanced nested bracketing delimiters of the same type, so something like
    $hash{$int} = qq{{... whatever ...}};
works as you expect.