At its April 29 meeting, the Hays County Commissioners Court approved May as Mental Health Awareness Month, Autism Awareness Month and began discussing the primary elections.
The proclamation stated that recognizing May 2026 as Mental Health Awareness Month is to increase awareness and deeper understanding of mental illness along with reducing stigma for people with mental health conditions.
Mental Health Awareness was created to recognize that 36.8% of adults in Texas reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, compared to the 32.3 % that report in the U.S.
“Each business, school, government agency, health care provider, organization, and citizen shares the burden of mental health challenges and has a responsibility to promote mental wellness and support prevention efforts,” the proclamation stated.
Commissioner Walt Smith said the court took a hard look at additional mental health support for people in Hays County early on during COVID-19.
“One thing that was really important to me was trying to use some of the COVID money to go the individual school districts to set up mental health availability in each one of our school,” Smith said.
Smith said there was only one independent school district within the county that had mental health resources before the court allocated funds to provide additional health professional staff.
Commissioner Morgan Hammer said it’s important to support kids and better understand their home situations.
“I feel like a lot of the time children of people with mental health issues get ignored,” Hammer said. “As someone who grew up with a single mom with some severe mental health issues, you know, you grow up a lot faster and people don’t recognize it at school or any of those types of things.”
Additionally, April was proclaimed as Autism Awareness Month, children from all races and cultures have been diagnosed with autism. Its estimated 1 in 36 children in the United States have autism.
Hays County Health Department Director Matthew Gonzales said he hopes to be a light house and help the community find the resources they need for mental health.
Isabella Vigil, behavioral health coordinator for Hays County Health Department, said early in her career she worked as a therapist serving children with autism and she saw brilliance and empathy.
“For too long autism has been framed through a lens of deficit, something to fix or reduce and I stand here today as both a professional and a neurodivergent individual to say autism is not a limitation,” Vigil said.
Aspen Flowers, social worker and founder of Gnomies Framework, an organization created to help parents, teachers and community members with tools to identify clues of Autism and ADHD, said her goal is to bridge the gap between a struggling student and a subordinate one.
“When we force neurodivergent children into a one-size-fits-all mode, we don’t just lose their potential, we miss the diagnosis entirely and leave them without a map,” Flowers said.
The Commissioners Court approves for the runoff election to take place on May 26, 2026. Early voting will begin on May 18th and continue until May 22nd.
Hays County Judge Becerra and Commissioner Michelle Cohen will face off for Hays County Judge in the runoff on May 24.
Running for Hays County on the democratic ballot is Judge Ruben Becerra, who is running for re-election and Michelle Cohen, representative for Precinct 2.
Along with the motion to approve the days for the runoff election, the court approved any rental fees for places that require payment for elections.
On a select amount of Tuesday’s the Hays County Commissioners Court meets at 9 a.m. Find out more on their website.
