Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday wasn’t ready to rip a page from President Obama’s playbook and offer a prominent City Hall post to his vanquished rivals Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon.

“It’s not a priority right now,” Menino said when asked whether he would bring Flaherty or his unofficial running mate into his administration as Obama did with his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Herald the day after scoring a historic fifth term, Menino also said the e-mail controversy that embroiled his top aide, Michael Kineavy, was overblown and failed to resonate with voters; that his first priority will be stabilizing the city’s finances; and that he couldn’t rule out layoffs of teachers, cops and other city workers.

The city’s 66-year-old chief executive also said it was too early to discuss whether he would consider running for a sixth term.

“I don’t know. I’m still in my fourth. Let me get into my fifth term,” he said. “You want to make me a lame duck before I’m even a duck. I’m not going to quack yet.”

Among the topics Menino addressed:

The flap over the thousands of e-mails Kineavy improperly deleted from his City Hall computer: “When you look at the (poll) numbers, nobody cares about e-mails . . . (E-mails) aren’t the most important issue to people who live in our neighborhoods . . . It was a distraction for a while and every day it was a headline. After we put 12,000 (e-mails) online, what happened? Nobody found one online that they could say, ‘Oh my God, there, he’s doing something wrong.’ ”

The timing of Kineavy’s return to City Hall from his unpaid leave of absence: “I haven’t talked to Michael. Michael will be sleeping for the next three days.”

The BRA: “They continue to talk about about restructuring the BRA. That doesn’t affect 16 people in the city . . . I don’t think the BRA has to be eliminated at all. We have to be able to message better.”

His top priority now: “One of the biggest issues that I must deal with is the financial stability of Boston. I know it isn’t the one that gets a lot of headlines, but if your finances don’t work, your city doesn’t work.”

Balancing the city’s budget: “It will not be as easy next time. There will be lot of difficult pressures. It will be a tough budget cycle.”

Layoffs of teachers, cops and other city workers: “I don’t know if layoffs are inevitable. I have to see what the governor is doing. I don’t know.”

The secret of his political longevity: “I think the people see me as one of them. I am their next-door neighbor who gives them assurance that the city is in good hands. . . (Some critics) give me a hard time. ‘Oh, he’s at that ribbon-cutting. He’s at the business opening.’ That’s what you are supposed to be doing. As mayor, you should be out there, selling the city, touching the people, asking them how I’m here to help them.”