SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Some 3,000 Orange County teachers have agreed to reduce their salaries by 4 percent over the next two years to help avoid layoffs and larger class sizes in their financially strapped Santa Ana Unified School District.

Nearly 80 percent of the district's teachers voted Friday to support a new three-year contract calling for the pay cuts. The Board of Education is expected to approve the pact, which also trims two days off the school year, at its March 23 meeting.

"This will be a difficult contract for us to accept because teachers will give up so much," said Tom Harrison, president of the teachers union. "But our interests are best served by the district maintaining financial solvency."

Teacher salaries will be returned to their current levels during the contract's final year, during which time both sides will also negotiate a possible pay raise.

In exchange for the agreement, district officials dropped their request for an $8,000-a-year cap on medical benefits and agreed to a new provision adding domestic partners to the list of people eligible for benefits.

"We are enormously appreciative to the sacrifice that our teachers have made for this district," said school board president Rob Richardson. "This has been a very difficult and challenging time we face, but hopefully we can start moving forward."

The district is facing a $29.8 million budget deficit, and officials said as many as 400 teachers would have lost their jobs without the salary concessions. Class sizes would have been increased from 20 to 30 students for kindergarten through third grade classes.

Kindergarten class sizes are still expected to increase for at least part of the school day.