Have you considered teaching a course in Perl as an ajunct at a local college or univeristy? That would introduce some would be developers to a language they might not otherwise see (or might see but only as a self taught subject). Further, by you, or one of your colleagues, teaching the course, you get a full school term to evaluate who is curious, smart, and has a good work ethic. Then you can try to hire a couple of those at graduation time. As a plus, they live in your area, at least temporarily for school, so you don't have to worry that they are unwilling to be there.

This assumes that you are willing to take fresh blood and live through some on the job training. Having looked briefly at jobs.perl.org in the past, I see a lot of people who want 5+ years of documented full time perl development. There are lots of problems with that. Many of us used Perl for years as admins, so even though our knowledge is high, our full time year count is low. Another problem is that the pay doesn't always correspond to the expectations. Are you really offering to pay for the experience you expect? Finally, a smart person is better than a stupid one, even if the later has years of experience. My grandfather used to say "Some people have ten years' experience, some people have one years' experience ten times." I add to that, "Some people seem to gain 10 years' experience in the first year."

Phil