Premier Rachel Notley is making changes to her cabinet less than six months after forming the government — raising eyebrows at the timing just days before the NDP's first provincial budget.

Notley issued a news release Wednesday evening announcing a swearing in ceremony at Government House for 10 a.m. Thursday.

CBC will livestream the ceremony and news conference to follow.

Notley only announced her slimmed-down cabinet in a public ceremony at the Alberta legislature in May.

It is the smallest cabinet in Alberta in decades, with several of the 12 ministers assigned multiple portfolios.

Political scientist Duane Bratt said he finds the timing of the shuffle curious with the NDP's first provincial budget set for Tuesday.

"If they aren't adding new people to the cabinet and getting rid of some of those dual portfolios that makes sense, but if they're shifting people from one portfolio to another after four months, that doesn't make any sense to me.

"Was this a summer job for people?"

Bratt said Notley may have been using the summer as a "four-month trial period" to see if any of her backbenchers could be elevated to cabinet.

"But if people are switching portfolios or people are being punted from cabinet, that seems awful early especially since the (legislature) hasn't even met in the fall yet," he said.

The cabinet is heavily weighted towards Edmonton which is represented with six ministers compared with three from Calgary, with the remaining three coming from the rest of the province.

Here is Notley's cabinet as it stands: