Wave of public employee retirements ebbs

The wave of public sector retirements that occurred last year after Gov. Scott Walker introduced sweeping collective bargaining changes hasn?t carried over into 2012, though the number of retirement applications is still up from 2010. There were 4,552 retirement applications in the first four months of this year, according to the Department of Employee Trust Funds. That?s down from 7,876 last year, but up 12 percent from 4,063 in 2010.