Replace the {} in your hash definition with ()... If you wanted a hashref, you would use {}, but assign to a scalar:
$rims = {
GROUP=>$string,
LNAME=>$string,
INITS=>$string,
MBRID=>$string,
M_DOB=>$string,
DEPCD=>$string,
P_FNAME=>$string,
P_DOB=>$string,
P_SEX=>$string,
};
update:
Thanks to
ikegami for pointing out the bigger problem with your code. The change I suggested will definitely fix your warning but will definitely not make your code do what you expect.