I would think that the following would do the same as your last snippet. Not to mention that it should use less memory.

my $curr_year = (localtime)[5];
$curr_year += 1900;
for ($curr_year - 100 .. $curr_year - 5) {
  push @years_loop, { year => $_ };
}
$template->param(years_loop => \@years_loop);
[download]