The Howard County Education Association has agreed to renegotiate salaries for 2,300 teachers and administrators for the last year of their three-year contract, the association's president said yesterday.

President James R. Swab said the association's representative council voted Tuesday night to grant a request by the superintendent and school board to reopen the salary discussions this month.

Superintendent Michael E. Hickey said yesterday he was pleased with the association's decision. "Otherwise, the school board would have been required to act unilaterally to set a new salary schedule" for the fiscal year that begins July 1, he said.

County Executive Charles I. Ecker and the County Council denied teachers and administrators a 6 percent negotiated raise and incremental raises averaging 2 percent this fiscal year, citing declining tax revenues.

"We have taken the position that we are willing to compromise and achieve a settlement that can be funded that will be acceptable to us," Mr. Swab said. "Hopefully, when the economy turns around we can make up our losses."

The union initially requested a 16 percent raise for teachers.