"I know a few little nooks and crannies," said Robin Murray '69, a reference assistant in Widener library.
"Sometimes I park on Cambridge Street. The spaces are free there," he said. "You just have to drive up and down the street until somebody leaves."
Murray, who lives in Melrose, Mass. said he sometimes parks north of Kirkland Street, just inside the Somerville border, where non-residents are allowed to park. In Cambridge, only cars with stickers denoting residence may park in most areas.
He said the price tag for a HUPS permit deters him from going that route.
"I'm only part time.... It costs too much for the number of hours I work," Murray said. "If I were working full time I'd almost have to do it."
HUPS charges $625 a year for 24-hour spaces for employees, or $350 for spaces that can only be accessed from 7 a.m. to midnight.
Honeycutt said that HUPS makes no profit selling its permits.
"We're a break-even institution," she said. "Rates are based on slow incremental increases on a yearly basis."
The income from parking permits is spent on general operating expenses, she said.
"Locks have to be repaired or replaced, snow needs to be removed from spaces so they can be used the next day," Honeycutt said. "It's a fee for service."
In Thursday's Boston Globe, Mike Barnicle wrote a column that criticized Harvard for charging its employees to park, considering the school's healthy endowment.
"A university worth nearly as much as Raytheon whacks these people between $350 and $625 a year to put their cars in university-owned lots," he wrote.
But Karen Anderson, a Harvard University Technical Services employee, wrote in a letter to the Globe that she felt the parking fees were reasonable.
"I know of no other place in Boston or Cambridge where you can have a safe parking spot feet from your door and receive the protection of the Harvard police," she wrote.
Students, faculty and staff are all charged the same amount for permits. Staff who opt for permits usually use the cheaper spaces, HUPS officials said, since they park their cars at home at night.
Many employees at HDS and other Harvard offices either use public transportation, or simply walk.