He was asked—may Allah have mercy on him:

Some mosques and a congregational mosque require repairs. They have fixed stipends payable by the collector, but the revenue is insufficient to cover everything. Is it permissible for him to pay anyone before carrying out the essential repairs? To whom may payments be made? What should he do with any surplus revenue: save it or purchase real estate with it?

He answered:

Praise be to Allah.

If both interests can be served by making the payments necessary to meet the essential needs of those entitled to them and enable them to perform their obligatory duties, while using the remainder for repairs, then this is the prescribed course—even if some repairs are delayed, provided that the delay causes no harm. Repairs are obligatory; duties that cannot be performed without stipends are obligatory; and relieving need is obligatory. Fulfilling these obligations is preferable to leaving some of them unfulfilled.

As for those whose services are indispensable to the repairs, such as workers and those handling the accounts, their costs form part of the repair expenses.

Any revenue remaining after the stipulated expenditures and the expenses of the mosques should be spent on purposes of the same kind, such as repairing another mosque and meeting the needs of mosques, and on similar beneficial purposes. The money must not be withheld indefinitely without a specific reason, especially in the case of mosques whose revenue is known consistently to exceed their needs. Withholding such money is a form of corruption:

“And Allah does not like corruption.”