Local government nerdery with policy teeth.
ZacCast is a local-government talk show with Chad and Pat moving between tax policy, city management questions, legislative updates, and economic modeling. The mood is informal, but the subject matter is dense: appraisal methods, sales tax forecasts, ADUs, elections, housing, water, and college football all share the table.
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ZacCast is local-government conversation with the sleeves rolled up. Chad and Pat talk through the machinery that shapes cities: property taxes, appraisal methods, sales tax forecasting, legislative proposals, election rules, housing policy, water issues, and the practical limits placed on local officials. The register is informal, but the policy focus is not light. A discussion can move from school drop-off and travel stories into confidence intervals, auto-regressive forecasts, industry-level sales tax data, and how city revenue models absorb uncertainty. Property tax comes up repeatedly, especially the tension between tax code, appraisal growth, residential taxpayers, and the way cities are blamed for systems they do not fully control. Legislative-session episodes bring state politics into the foreground. The show tracks bills on voter approval thresholds, disaster provisions, ADUs, election timing, vouchers, and constraints on city authority. Housing gets attention through both state-level reform talk and a guest episode with Chuck Marone, described in the excerpt as founder and president of Strong Towns. The show also leaves room for its running texture: college-football arguments, family anecdotes, travel, dogs in the background, and jokes that keep the dense material from turning into a white paper. That looseness matters. ZacCast does not present local government as an abstract civic studies topic; it treats it as a working field where budget rules, state politics, growth patterns, and administrative choices collide. The strongest moments come when the speakers translate technical mechanisms into consequences for cities and residents, especially around taxes and housing. It is not trying to be a polished explainer with every edge sanded down. It sounds closer to informed colleagues arguing through the week’s problem, then wandering briefly into football before returning to the numbers. The result is useful for anyone who wants municipal policy discussed with specificity, frustration, humor, and enough procedural detail to see where the pressure points actually sit.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants local government, municipal finance, and legislative fights explained through candid working conversation. It also fits people who do not mind college-football detours beside tax-code mechanics.
What sets it apart: ZacCast stands out by pairing casual banter with unusually granular local-government policy talk. It can joke about vacations or football, then spend serious time on appraisal methods, sales tax modeling, ADUs, and voter approval rules.
The official podcast for local government nerds, from the folks behind ZacTax. We talk about everything from sales tax to city management to college sports, and bring you stories from the front lines of local government administration.
Football banter before Texas tax math: Chad and Patrick make the fine print your business.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose but useful return to the tax mechanics that can shift more burden onto residential property owners.
ZacCast returns from a long summer pause with a conversation that starts in vacation hangover mode, then settles into a sharper local-government tax question: residential taxpayers can carry more of the load when their property values rise faster.
A practical municipal look at Texas ADUs and proposed local election timing changes.
Texas municipal life comes through in a practical discussion of proposed ADU changes and SB 1209, which the hosts say passed the Senate and would remove the May uniform election date for typical local government and school district elections.
A clear, data-minded look at market volatility and local sales-tax forecasting.
ZachCast steps outside its usual rhythm as Chad and Patrick tie a volatile market stretch to the less visible work of local-government sales-tax forecasting.
A timely Texas legislative check-in where tax thresholds meet the practical strain facing local governments.
The episode frames a Texas legislative session through the practical limits of local government, focusing on how proposed tax rules could narrow a county's ability to raise revenue.
A lively Texas property-tax argument tying appraisal methods, split rates, school funding, and legislative incentives together.
Property taxes in Texas get a brisk, argumentative audit as Zachast moves from appraisal methods to the case for splitting tax rates by property type. The central concern is the long shift of the burden toward residential taxpayers.
Birdland nerves, familiar banter, Baltimore patience.
ZacCast spends most of this episode on SB 10, Texas's special-session property-tax bill, with Patrick outlining a move from a 3.5% M&O cap to 2.5% and a House version that drops in a 1% limit for many local governments.
ZacCast focuses on the Texas legislative session, where Chad and Patrick track vouchers and the city bills that could stall behind them.
ZacCast's April 4 episode opens on a sharp market drop, with Patrick saying he got a city-manager call at 7:15 a.m.
ZacCast’s "What happens in Austin doesn't always stay in Austin" is a Texas local-government episode about sales tax, property tax, and five House bills.
Zacast spends most of "Hold onto your butts...
A USA Today story cited a study connecting groundwater pumping with a 31.5-inch shift in Earth’s axis.
On ZacCast, Chad and Pat weigh Texas's 96% privately owned land against the national public-private split they describe as roughly 40/60.
Chuck Marohn says the housing trap comes from treating homes as both shelter and investments that depend on rising prices.
Chad questions two assumptions in a homebuilder's press-release quotes about a 557-acre, 2,200-home Pilot Point development, including that Pilot Point "is well positioned for exponential growth." Patrick answers that employers moving to Texas drive housing demand, noting that Celina grew 26.6% between July 2022 and July 2023 according to the U.S.
ZacCast's September 4 episode centers on the Tarrant Appraisal District's new policy of appraising residential property every other year with growth capped at 5%, which hosts Chad and Pat say ignores the state statute.
The Sahm rule, which flags recession when the three-month average unemployment rate rises 0.5 points above its 12-month low, was triggered the week before recording and helped drive a market sell-off.
The hosts discuss a random fact about driving around the earth using the money from Jimbo Fisher's buyout.