This article develops an optimization-based synthesis procedure for fixed-order output-feedback controllers, ensuring a stable closed-loop system with a monotonic step response and rejection of persistent disturbances. This result is based on a unified set of external positivity conditions for discrete-time linear systems. The conditions are derived using an alternative technique for the inverse ${\mathcal {Z}}$-transform of rational transfer functions based on Bell polynomials and a convenient recurrence relation for the impulse response. Our approach yields a necessary and sufficient condition expressed as polynomial inequalities in the transfer function coefficients. Under additional assumptions, we derive a sequence of weaker but numerically more tractable conditions, leading to an efficient controller synthesis procedure.