[Mason] Design Question

I was wondering whether I am on the right path as far as my design with 
Mason is good. Things work but I don't see many people using this method:

- My custom Perl Libraries in /usr/local/apache/lib/perl/MyApp/XXX.pm

- From my Mason components, I make calls like this:

% $get_date = MyApp::Tools::get_date($dbh, ...);

($dbh is a global variable and all components have access to this)

I rarely have methods defined in the components themselves. Is this bad 
practise or is what I have done just another way of doing things?

Thanks

Ogden